


Home

by General_Lee



Series: Who We Are Now [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Closeted Character, Drug Use, During Canon, Forgive Me for This Death, Implied/Referenced Sex, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Tension, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:16:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 56,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/General_Lee/pseuds/General_Lee
Summary: Season 3: A Far Harbor AdaptationWhen a trio of companions journey to a place called Far Harbor, everything they think they know about themselves is challenged.





	1. Like Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Theme for Home: [What About Us - P!nk - Acoustic Cover](https://youtu.be/ZRTlsKQsXRg/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme for Season 3: [No Strings on Me](https://youtu.be/gXlBg1XfXgk/)

JOHN

Sanctuary Hills, MA

February 19th, 2288

A tiny flame flickered into existence, and John tipped the match towards his cigarette. Taking a deep drag on his smoke, he flicked the matchstick out of the broken front window of his parlor and into the night. He stood at his window and smoked, waiting for the last of the lights to go out in the occupied homes of Sanctuary Hills. The ashtray on his end table, in the company of too many empty chem canisters, overfilled as time crept by. Finally, the lamp in Preston’s window extinguished, and the development was still.

Stamping out his cigarette, John sneaked out his front door, headed in the direction of the bridge. He clambered down the embankment and following the shoreline along the river front, keeping himself hidden from any late-night wanderers that might feel as restless as he. Stealth assisted by a moonless night, he picked around the debris and fallen trees, climbing up from the east side of Sanctuary, sticking to the shadows of collapsed homes. He finally ducked into a house painted in a faded blue shade.

The house had previously been one of the best kept in the development, tiny to a fault and fully stocked, but had fallen into neglect. Through no lack of trying, John hadn’t been able to convince Danse to move to Goodneighbor. In the only compromise they could reach, Danse had relocated to Sanctuary indefinitely. Out of concern, John had stayed with him, much to Fahrenheit’s resentment. A steady stream of caps had kept MacCready sliding back and forth between the two settlements, delivering messages and doling out John’s orders. The job of Deputy Mayor seemed to suit him.

Since bringing Danse back to Sanctuary, John had been more diligent in the manufacture and consumption of Curie’s remedy. An orderly collection of pre-filled syringes sat at John’s bedside – not chems, or anything fun – but little blue vials of time that would stave off his inevitable end as a drooling feral. They were easy to transport and, with Danse currently a mess, John didn’t dare skip a dose. John didn’t always visit – Danse’s bad days were impressively awful – but a radstorm had come through earlier that day, rejuvenating his worn ghoul joints, and the lingering ionization granted him an impulsive sense of optimism.  

A single oil lantern on the porch gave enough illumination for John to make out the empty bottles strewn carelessly across the floor, and he hopped to avoid them. His dilated pupils adjusted as he made his way down a pitch-black hallway, feeling his way towards a room at the end. Stepping through the doorway, he was greeted by the unmistakable sound of charging energy as a laser rifle’s sights homed in on his direction. A red wash of light bathed the face of the weapon’s owner. “Just me,” John softly rasped, raising his empty hands.  

“I’ve taken a unit,” Danse replied in a thick-sounding voice, the glow of crimson energy fading as the rifle found its way back to the floor. The potent smell of alcohol lingered in the room.

“Ah. Should I go?” If Danse had just injected himself with Calmex, they wouldn’t have much time together before the chem took effect.

“S’alright,” Danse slurred from his bed. His mattress squeaked as he shifted to one side. John stepped softly, avoiding any bottles that might be scattered on the floor. It was a cold night and, although he shrugged out of his overclothes, he kept his shirt and pants on as he climbed in next to Danse. The bedframe groaned in protest at both their weights. Danse had long since ripped the tattered Brotherhood flag down from his window, leaving the opening unobstructed and drafty. Dawn light always woke John in time to get home before anyone was the wiser, but winter air chilled the room. He ran light fingers over Danse’s cheek, taking note of how long his beard was getting. Danse rolled and caught John’s mouth with his. John reciprocated, glad to feel Danse’s warm, full lips on his despite Danse’s tongue tasting like stale scotch.

Nothing sexual had occurred, and no one knew about them, as neither were ready to explain their history to a dozen different people. Each time they dallied close to full-blown sex, Danse would chicken out and remain distant for days. Danse remained a mess, lost and depressed, drinking and sleeping his days away, shying away from others, withholding his synth identity and retreating further and further into misery. Most nights, he would jolt awake, fleeing from some nightmare. When John tried to help, Danse pushed him away. Occasionally, the shove was physical, and John would find himself knocked out of bed and onto the floor. Those instances tested John’s patience the most. But he liked things that were bad for him, including Danse and all the complications that came with him.  

“Permit me,” said Danse, breaking their kiss, his voice sounding tired and husky. “Can I touch you?”

That question lit a fire in John, and he moved to grind his pelvis against Danse’s mighty thigh. “You’d better,” John answered with a smirk, not quite sure what an inebriated Danse had in mind.

Danse rolled John onto his back and propped his own bulk up with a hand. Searching in the dark, Danse’s fingers landed lightly on John’s face, and his stomach promptly knotted. With agonizing slowness, those fingertips moved over the fissures and grooves of his features, skin barely brushing skin. John’s breath shook as Danse felt from one side of his face to the other, trailing under his jaw, moving up over his chin and across his lips. His heart pounded as the touch continued up over his nasal cavity and across his brow. Although he had managed to hold his head still under Danse’s gentle prodding, his body writhed and he was left gasping. The feeling of Danse’s fingers softly exploring his face was, to date, the single most erotic moment of John’s life. He wanted to arch up into him, to grind and grab and be grabbed and feel Danse’s full weight on top of him…but he refrained, twining his hands in sheets instead.

His touch turning heavy, Danse’s fingertips settled into the groves in John’s face before sliding away. His body lowered to one side.

“Dan?”

No answer, only steady breathing. The Calmex must have taken hold. Slipping fingers through Danse’s hair, John nestled in closer. Driven to frustration, he slept in restless chunks of time, waking every hour or so. In brief dreams, he had long hair and Danse was laughing.

He got up to leave as night began to transform into a grey dawn, Danse’s mass still slumbering next to him **.** After tugging on his boots, he shrugged into his blue waistcoat, slung the frock over an arm, and took his hat in hand. As he wound his way out of the house, he relived the feel of Danse’s hand on him and recalled how perfectly their bodies used to fit together in all types of ways. He felt himself flush, heat building in his stomach to rush both up and down.

Fuck. Now he needed a cigarette. Pausing on the porch, he fumbled to light it one-handed.

“The disgraced synth and the manufactured ghoul. That’s one for the history books.”

A tight band constricted in John’s chest, snapping tight with brutal force. He twisted and caught sight of Nick Valentine five feet away under the eaves of Danse’s house, a cigarette burning in his hand. Countless butts scattered the ground at his Oxfords.

“How’d you know about him being...one of them?” John wasn’t about to have the word _synth_ be blurted out a second time.

Nick tilted his head. “ _That’s_ the first question you ask? I was with Nate when he got the order to put a bullet in the big lug’s head.” He took a drag on his smoke and brushed dust from his coat. “You’re not as stealthy as you’d like to think. Spotted you sneaking through Sanctuary late last night.” Another puff. “Seems like you have a penchant for the boys in orange, friend.”

John granted himself a few puffs on his own smoke. “Just him. It’s always been him.”

The old synth looked genuinely surprised. “That so?”

Placing his cigarette in pursed lips, John pulled Nick away from the porch and into the side yard, away from any early risers. “When’d you figure it out?” His breath fogged in front of his face. The only haze before Nick was the smoke from his cigarette. 

“His reaction when you took a hypodermic to the throat way back when.” Nick reached out with elegant, slender steel fingers and plucked at the chain around John’s neck, pulled at it until the tags tumbled free. “Y’ain’t exactly subtle. And your playboy reputation precedes you.”

Danse’s holotags. Nate had returned them, but Danse’s face paled each time he looked at them. John had stopped Danse from throwing them in the river and asked if he could keep them. _‘They may not be you now,’_ John had said, _‘but they belonged to a guy I cared about. If you don’t want ‘em, I do.’_   Now, he had a set of holotags to go with his flag. Along with his outfit, he couldn’t be more American.

Snuffing the cigarette, John donned his hat. “I’m an equal opportunist,” John said, shrugging into his coat. “Dames, fellas, ghouls, high functioning synths” – he gestured back at Danse’s house for that one – “it’s all the same. Well, mostly.” Nick’s collection of cigarette butts came to mind. “So you took to lingering like a creeper?” John asked, lip curling in suspicious disgust.

Nick didn’t look accusatory. Rather, he appeared slightly empathetic, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly, his eyes losing any mischievous harshness. “Been waiting for you. Not like I’d benefit from beauty sleep. But if you need to get something off that bony chest of yours, you know I’m a decent listener.”

As they stood in the shadow of Danse’s house, the weight of secrets carried for years grew heavier. The one time he had tried to explain Danse, it had blown up in his face. Now, John was at loss to shake Danse out of his funk and was ready to take any assistance he could get. This was Nick, group dad and one of the people – or, people-ish – he had known the longest of anyone that he remained in contact with, and John respected him. Nick’s business was helping people, never hurting them, and always tried to put worried loved ones at ease. What happened before in Diamond City…that debacle had been based on bad intel, manipulation, and Piper’s prying.  

John hesitantly tried to explain. “Things with us…they weren’t tawdry. They weren’t shady. It was the most honest and healthy relationship I’ve ever had. Either of us. We were loved. I was damn grateful to have had him in my life, despite the awful parts. And now, it’s like glass.” It hurt. It caused actual pain to be so close and still have a chasm between them. “Nicky, please, I’m goddamned begging you. No jokes. Don’t push him. It’s too fragile. You owe me that much.”

Reaching out to squeeze John’s shoulder, Nick’s smile was as warm as synthetic face could allow. “Keep your pants on, sweetheart. I’m not looking to make trouble for you. Or him, for that matter. He’s working his way through more than just you.”

“That’s a mild statement.” John sagged against the side of the house and watched pink stripes paint the horizon, stars dotting out of existence one by one. Worry had led him to Nate, who’d tried to explain that he’d gone through a loss of self-worth when the great war had ended and he’d been sent home, having to work through each stage of grief one by one. Danse seemed to be going through all the stages simultaneously – lashing out, insisting to be left alone, going through short periods when everything was fine and smiling, even slipping up now and again by speaking as if he were still a paladin. The Institute had spies everywhere – the Railroad confirmed it – and every tato farmer in the region knew that the Brotherhood paid liberally for information. A small error could cost Danse his life and bring a firestorm down on Sanctuary. John would have loved to lean on Nate for help, but he was off doing whatever it was he did while inside the Institute. “Who else knows?”

Nick lifted a shoulder and took a final drag before stamping his cigarette out on the siding. “Nate’s busy, and occasionally dense. But I’m guessing that Deacon knows. And probably God.” He cleared his throat – out of habit, John guessed, as there couldn’t be much in there. “‘Sides, I’m after you for separate matter. You feel up for traveling?”

“Sure as radstorms,” John answered, putting a chipper edge on the phrase. Being stuck in rural Sanctuary was starting to make him feel caged. “What’cha need?”

“Could use some help on something,” Nick alluded. “Seeing how you and the big guy haven’t left for a while, figured it might be good for both of you.”

“Shoot.” Anything had to be better than watching Danse deliberately self-destruct.

“Got a case at the edge of the Commonwealth, way up the coast. Missing person. A girl. Long walk to get there. One I’d rather not venture alone, not with everyone up in arms these days.”

“You want an escort?”

“Not exactly. From Danse, yes – he’s good at playing the part of the muscle. But you – you’ve got a way of sizing folks up pretty well. Could use a fresh set of eyes and quick wit.” He sheepishly glanced downwards. “Plus, the father and I go way back and that doesn’t exactly render me objective. You in?”

“Like he’s gonna do what I say, but, yeah, I’ll try.” Convincing Danse to do anything but feel sorry for himself would take some work.

“That’s as much as I can ask for,” Nick said, gratified. He jabbed a thumb at the nearby hilly region beyond the limits of Sanctuary. “We’ll make for the north and crawl up the coastline. It’ll get him out of that house and away from any of the action. We’ll head out before noon. And change outta that ridiculous getup before we go, alright?” he added. “Try and be a little inconspicuous.”

Rolling his eyes, John griped, “What so wrong about being patriotic?”

“You look like a nut.”

“How un-American of you. Fine.” John left Nick to go back to his house. There, he could grab a few more hours of sleep and find a change of clothes. As he walked, he removed his tricorn and wondered how it might look with a different ensemble. Frowning, he realized he probably wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

“Beware the fog,” a drawling voice crooned.

John stopped in his tracks, looking up from his hat. “What?”

“The fog,” Mama Murphy repeated, sitting in her chair under the carport of her house, shaded from the rising sun. “Few return after venturing into the mists.” Her rummy eyes were wide and unfocused, staring out at nothing. “Fear and hate – the fog feeds them, allows both to grow, consuming everyone it touches. You’ll drown. Drown in the energy and the truth. I see fire, all scarlet and green, with you standing at the center of it. The glory. The division. It’s because of you.”

Her words made his skin crawl and his hair would have stood on end, if he had any. “Why you hangin’ out at the break of dawn?” he admonished her, shaking off the creeps. “You been mixing at my chem station, again? Too much Jet’ll make you jittery.” John spun his hat in his hands before placing it atop his head. She was hardly the first addict to believe that they spoke on behalf of fate. Some were far more convincing and actually made caps off it. “Watch yourself, Mama Murphy,” he warned. “The chems don’t lead any place good. I’d know.”

He was sure to inject one of the blue vials before crashing into bed.


	2. Dreams and Dispositions

NICK

Essex County, MA

February 21st, 2288

As they journeyed up the coast, Nick’s revolver swung reassuringly in its holster, within easy reach should any problem arise. Despite the bright sun, a fine mist clung on the coastline, diffusing the light. A few radgulls flapped in the surf, cawing and picking edible scraps out of the sand. Sand crunched beneath Nick’s shoes as the trekked along the rocky beach, and he peered over his shoulder at his companions. Danse had his old laser rifle once more, slung across his back with a rucksack, while John carried two pistols, one pipe and one plasma, on either hip, his knife concealed somewhere on his person.

“Feels kinda like Liberty Isle,” John said, dressed in road leathers that clung to his thin frame. Brahmin-leather boots were strapped up to his knees and the tails of the flag tied around his hips trailed down to brush over the tops of them. A red bandana, hiding the worst of the wasted flesh on his forehead, completed the outfit. “Simple. Lazy.” He shook a few Mentats into his hand and popped them into his mouth, crunching loudly as he ground the tablets to dust with his teeth. “No wonder so many people turn to chems in the quiet places,” he mumbled around the powder coating his tongue.

“We’re well away from the rabble plaguing most of the Commonwealth, that’s for sure,” said Nick, gazing over the ocean. A few capsized ships poked from the surface, their jagged, corroded metal hulls resembling sea beasts off in the distance.

“I’m a fan of the rabble,” John said, shrugging. He hopped over a skeleton with a fishing pole still gripped in the bones of one hand.

“Hmph,” Danse grunted, his displeasure poorly disguised as Nick glanced back at him. Lingering at the rear of their party, the former paladin certainly appeared hardier than he had in Sanctuary, taking long, confident strides in combat armor while scanning the beachfront for any activity. There wasn’t much to fight beyond the occasional water-logged ghoul. Danse left those in smoldering ash piles. Nick had been aboard the Prydwen several times, accompanying Nate as he had given an update about some mission to a pompous hotshot in a snazzy coat. With his unkept hair falling into his face and his beard gone bushy, Danse now resembled that same honcho. Even his bomber jacket, with its faux-shearling lining, echoed the other man’s apparel, though the jeans, dark shirt and boots were clearly Wasteland chic in a previously-owned and beat-up kind of way.

Blame it on the empathy that came with age or a detective’s intuition, but Nick could tell that something was churning in Danse, like a slow flame flickering to life. In John, too – both inherent leaders in a civilization that prized might too highly. Nate and Garvey’s Minutemen were on a good path, but the group lacked political ambition and tight, military precision. Given the right tools, these two lunkheads might actually succeed in those regards, provided that John used his remaining time wisely and Danse didn’t crawl into a bottle or decide to clock out. Might be time for the Commonwealth Provisional Government to rear its head again since, hell, if an ex-paladin and a ghoul could unite, perhaps world peace wasn’t too far off. Maybe that’s what it took – the combination of ghoul, synth, and human perspectives – to build a foundation for the future. _Hmm_ , Nick pondered. He supposed that thinking about the world you leave behind was also a trait of the aging. _A new America. What a thing for a crusty, old synth to contemplate._

They crossed over wooden planks functioning as crude bridges over tributaries. The beach narrowed significantly, forcing them to walk single file – Nick leading, John following and Danse still trailing along behind them, unhappy expression in tow. Although Danse accompanied them, it was clear that he would have rather remained at home. John must have done some fast talking to have gotten him out and about. Their trip across the state had been quiet and uncomfortable, particularly after Nick had let slide outside Outpost Zimonja that he knew about the history between the other two men. Danse’s silence had turned absolutely stony, and despite John’s insistence that he hadn’t betrayed him – _‘S’not like I went around saying anything. He’s the detective. He detected’ –_ the trip remained painful at best. It was as if Nick had resigned himself to take two pouty kids to Grandma’s.

Their destination appeared around a curve in the rock wall, plucking feelings of familiarity and nostalgia in Nick’s steel-shrouded breast. “Looks like we’ve arrived.” The Nakano resistance was a quaint little beachfront home with a sturdy looking boat anchored at the end of a short dock, seemingly untouched by the war in the Commonwealth. It would have been a peaceful scene if not for the sound of a man shouting into a radio. A woman was trying to calm him as the trio stepped up to the front door. “I’m sure this bodes well,” Nick muttered, sarcasm thick as his hand wrapped around the knob.

“Let’s this over with,” Danse grumbled, gripping the strap of his rifle in one white-knuckled hand. John rolled his eyes.

“I know you’re listening!” the man was yelling. “When I find you, you are going to pay, I swear it!”

“Just let me do the talking.” Nick shoved the door open and motioned for the others to follow. He’d walked through this door dozens of times. The Wasteland was a big place, and Kenji Nakano, in his youth, had been excited to ferry Nick to all the places beyond the Commonwealth’s reach, soaking up adventures and happily recounting tales to his young bride, Rei. Their trips became less frequent after the birth of Kasumi, until the man ceased aiding Nick all together, citing the security of his own family over the needs of Nick’s clientele. “Hope you don’t mind, Kenji,” he called, stepping over the threshold. “We let ourselves in.”  

An Asian couple in simple mariner clothes stood in the living room, huddled over a radio on a dining room table. Simple furniture and humble seaside décor adorned the living room, and a kitchen could be spotted through gaps in a wall. When the man caught sight of Nick, a microphone on a long, winding cord dropped from his hand. Time hadn’t been kind to Kenji’s face, and the man threw angry desperation straight at Nick. “It is about time that you got here,” he affronted through baggy eyelids and sagging jowls, slamming a palm down on the table. The radio wobbled. “Nick, you need to get to work right away. She could be anywhere! She could be –”

“Whoa now, Kenji. I _am_ working,” Nick retorted, puffing his chest out in leftover machismo programming. “And I’m gonna need more than one panicked transmission to go on. Fill me and my partners here in on the details. This is John and Danse,” he introduced, motioning to each of them with a thumb.

The couple tore their eyes away from Nick to stare over his shoulder. He couldn’t imagine that a skinny ghoul and a mountain of a man sporting an impressive scowl did much to calm their nerves. “Well, I…I supposed the more eyes, the better,” Kenji reluctantly agreed, though his tone said the opposite.

“So what happened to get you all riled?” John asked, poking into drawers like a pest. Looking for more chems, most likely. He’d wandered out of arm’s reach, or else Nick would have smacked him.

“It was the radio,” Rei explained, twisting her hands nervously. “She had been talking with someone she met. We keep trying the channels, but no one will answer.” Her face had adopted some harshness as well, a not-uncommon sight in Wasteland parents. The Wastes were rough, even out here, and rising a child was hard and frightening work. “Kasumi, she…she’s nineteen. I think…well…” She lowered her eyes, hands dropping. “I think she just wanted her own life. I can’t fault her for that.”

“Preach, Sister,” John agreed, stuffing something in a pocket. Nick narrowed his eyes.  

“No,” Kenji staunchly argued, slicing a hand through the air is if cutting down that suggestion. “That’s not like her. She would have never left on her own accord, Nick. I know it. She took one of the boats, without leaving as much as a note!”

“So…your adult daughter took a safe vessel along a sparsely affected coastline.” Danse’s arms were folded tightly across his chest. “I fail to see the emergency.”

Nick shot him a look of scorn. “Never mind Mr. Negativity over there,” he said to the parents. “We’ll find her. Don’t you worry.” Addressing his cohorts, Nick snapped, “Both of you – upstairs.”

After collecting the two of them in a small hallway on the second level, he gave Danse a stern look. “Nice people skills. Should have expected as much outta you. And, hey, Sticky Fingers McGee,” he lectured John. “What exactly were you liberating in there?”

John gave a leisurely grin and produced a collection of holotapes.

“Why would you take those?” Danse asked, his brows knitting even tighter.

“In my experience, when folks starting planning something, they leave notes,” John explained, and waved the tapes.

Nick nodded, proud that he’d picked up on that. Though John tended to make snap judgements about people, he was rarely wrong. His innate way of unraveling human desires and tendencies was already coming in handy. Most of the house was neat and organized, but one of the rooms seemed jam-packed with stuff – rolls of cable, stacks of batteries, and towering collections of junk. Kasumi’s den. “Alright, Poirot. Let’s canvas the girl’s room,” Nick instructed, indicating with a thumb.

“Do I get to go through her underwear drawer?” John joked with a half-cocked smile and one raised brow. Danse’s face clouded over.

Nick wanted to sigh, but given his plastic lungs, it never felt quite right. “Knock it off, you two. I swear it – you’re gonna drive me straight into an early grave.”

They shuffled into what had to be Kasumi’s bedroom, cluttered with half-finished projects and scattered with tools. More holotapes were strewn about. There was no sign of forced entry, no sign of a rushed or drastic exit, nothing to suggest anything major might be missing or out of place.

Picking a tape off the floor, Danse held it out and said, “Whatever she was doing, it appears as though she kept thorough records.”

John nodded to one of the bins in the room overflowing with makeshift tech. “That a working holoplayer?”

Picking up a small, portable tape player, Nick allowed himself a smile. “Jackpot.” He took the tape from Danse and slid it into the device. The message played.

_“Project log. Dreams. Recording what I can remember when I wake up. I keep having the same one. I'm in a white room. People are talking about me like I'm not there, or maybe they just don't care. And then there's this... I don't know... Jolt. Like a spark of electricity to the back of my head. And then everyone turns to look at me. God... I hope I don't have it again tonight...”_

They remained mute after the tape stopped. It appeared as if the case had finally gotten Danse’s full attention – his brow had a different kind of furrow now, concerned instead of upset. Memories of waking up in a white room danced through Nick’s synapses, of people in plastic lab coats jotting notes before the scene went dark and the entire process looped. “When people go missing,” Nick began, “the knee-jerk reaction is to think Institute.”

“Think she really is a synth?” John asked, directing the question at Nick before they both glanced at Danse.

“Why are you both looking at me?” Danse asked in an abrasive a tone that could scratch glass. “I’ve never experienced that type of dream.”

The other tapes yielded no additional information. Handing the holoplayer to John, Nick ordered, “Bring this. And not a word.” He led the others back downstairs to where Kenji and Rei waited anxiously. “Ya never noticed the tapes?” he accused.

“What tapes?” Kenji asked, his frown deepening.

Rei put a hand on her husband’s arm. “Her diary entries? Yes, I noticed. I used to listen to them when she was younger. Just the musings of a normal girl. Missing her grandfather, wishing she had friends up here, nothing unusual.”

“Well, the content has changed,” Nick assured. “You said she was talking to someone on the radio. You ever hear who it was? A man? A woman?”

“No, never,” Rei said, shaking her head. “She was so excited when she got the first radio to work. Told us that she’d met people through it. She lit up. Said that she wanted to meet them.”

“The first radio?” Nick questioned.

“I…yes,” Kenji said, loosing his fury and settling down into a chair. “I threw it into the sea.” Nick and John gave each other a glance in the silence that followed. “I…needed her to be safe, not endorse her rushing headlong into God-knows-what,” Kenji continued, and motioned to the radio on the table. “But she just built another one – this one. We’d catch her switching it off when we came back from trading or fishing.”

Seemed like a classic case of overprotective parenting, not that Nick could blame them. The Commonwealth was lucky enough to be free of slavers, but children being stolen or coerced by Gunners or raiders wasn’t unheard of. And living in Diamond City and instilled a healthy dose of paranoia regarding the Institute. “Any place where Kasumi’d go to be alone on the property?” Nick queried. “Somewhere she might have hidden things?”

“Maybe the boathouse?” Rei suggested. “She spent so much time out there with her grandfather when she was little. After he passed, she’d hide in there for hours.”

Kenji gave his wife a bitter look. “Why would that matter? Someone twisted her mind and you want to waste their time –”

“Kenji,” Nick interrupted before the family was split even further. “I’ve got this. Hang back and let us work.”

Rei took Nick’s polymer-coated hand, squeezing it. “Thank you. I know that you’ll do everything you can to find her and bring her back.”

Nick tugged the brim of his hat down as he gave her a nod. She released him and the threesome started the walk to the boathouse. From behind, Nick could hear Danse grouse, “I’m beginning to become highly uncomfortable with this case.”

“Dan, you’re always uncomfortable,” John retorted. “Might as well put it to use.”

In the boathouse, they didn’t find much except an old safe, which took Nick no time to crack into. The only item of interest inside was another holotape, which he flipped to John. The ghoul slid the tape in. Before he could play it, Danse clapped a hand down over the device, fixing John with a trepid stare. Bringing a hand over his, John gave one squeeze before removing Danse’s hand from the player.

As they listened to the tape, Danse’s expression drew more and more defeated. Kasumi talked about synthetic people, the Institute, of a haven for lost synths in the North and more. _“I mean... I've always felt... off... like I'm not really supposed to be here, but then there are things in my childhood that I can't remember, and I've been having strange dreams... I... I'm going to go. To meet with these synths. I... I have to know the truth about myself.”_ By the time the tape had finished, Danse’s eyes were glazed over and he stood still as marble.

“Far Harbor?” Nick asked, pushing through the unease that had fallen over all three of them. “Is that where she said she went?”

John nodded, dark eyes locked on Danse’s. “Yeah,” he said breathily. “That’s the place.”

“Looks like Kasumi left to be with her people. Least, that was her perception.” Nick tapped his chin with a steel finger. “Sure that’ll come as quite the shock to her parents.”

“So, she thinks she’s what – a replacement?” asked John, looking away from Danse and scratching at his forehead through the bandana as if it itched.

“I’m gonna leave that part out. You stay here and keep an eye on him,” Nick instructed, pointing at Danse, who seemed caught in a horrified trance.

Leaving them behind in the boathouse gave Nick a few moments to gather his thoughts. It seemed as if Kasumi had been working on her own investigation, following the only lead she had. As he pushed the door to the house open, Nick struggled with what he would say.

“Did you find anything yet?” was the aggressive question that greeted him.

Maybe Kenji needed a lesson on manners and a stiff drink before they continued. Nick plucked a bottle of vodka from a curio cabinet and slid it across the table. Kenji scowled at it. “Look like she might have gotten caught up in some bad news,” said Nick, decidedly omitting the whole synth conversation. If he couldn’t find her, it almost didn’t matter. “She’s headed up north to a place called Far Harbor.”

“Way up there? You have to go after her!” Kenji commanded with a righteous storm of bluster.

Akin to calming an animal, Nick slowly held out his hands. “Alright, look here – Kenji, Rei, we’re going to do the best we can. We know where she’s going, and she only has a few days’ head start. I can follow her trail.”

“And the others?” Kenji interjected, mouth pursed as if he’d been sucking a bad tarberry. “Why bring them at all? What can they possibly do?”

“John can be immensely persuasive,” Nick defended. “People have a hard time telling him _no_. And Danse may have a… _unique_ perspective on this situation. We’ll find Kasumi. And I don’t make promises lightly.” They could be walking into anything – an Institute ruse, trapping escaped synths; a fringe operation on behalf of the Railroad; normal, everyday humans luring unsuspecting synths to their doom; an actual refuge that led synths out of the danger zones of the Commonwealth and north into safety.

Kenji finally took a breath, expression relaxing a fraction as tight shoulders drooped. He paused to take a swig from the bottle. “Alright,” he submitted, twisting the cap back on. “You should use my father’s ship. It has a guidance system and can make it all the way to Maine and back again.”

“I’ll take it,” Nick said. He shook Rei’s hand as Kenji scurried out to prep the boat. “Let me grab those bozos together and we’ll be on our way.”

Back in the boathouse, he found John sitting on ground, scratching the dock cats, his back to Danse, who still looked unhappy. It was fairly clear that they’d fought in Nick’s absence. “Pretty tired of picking up the Railroad’s garbage,” John griped. “Agents drag every homeless stray they find through my streets.” He looked up at Nick. “We letting ‘em know?”

Nick hummed and lit a cigarette. “Railroad won’t go chasing after a _suspected_ synth, especially one out of their jurisdiction. This one’s on us.”

Danse’s arms were crossed again, shoulders hunched as he paced. “Don’t make me do this,” he implored, shaking his head while his eyes remained out of focus. “Don’t instruct me to accompany you.”

Having had enough of his attitude, Nick glowered at him. “You wanna go home?” he asked in a sharp tone. “Sleep for another six weeks? For six _years_? We passed plenty of rocks about your size on the way here if you wanna hide under one for the rest of eternity. You gotta quit feeling sorry for yourself and get back in the game, sonny.”

Danse shook his head and kept pacing. “I have a terrible sense of dread. And if being soldier has taught me anything, it’s to trust my gut.”

Nick puffed on his cigarette as he and John shared a long glance. _Help_ , John expression plainly read.

“Then you get to stay on the boat,” Nick said, shaking his cigarette in Danse’s direction. “There’s a girl out there that may need help. And if she is a synth – without Railroad support, you’re the most relevant option we have. So, suck it up, buttercup. You and your gut are going.”


	3. The Hero of the Hull

DANSE

The Gulf of Maine

February 23rd, 2288

All color had seeped from the world, leaving a flat, grey palette that stretched in all directions. It was cold, and the air was damp. A thick haze met choppy, dull water, which hammered against the hull before dissolving into a fine mist. The spray peppered Danse across his cheeks on he stood by the guardrail, watching the boat slip through the Atlantic. The engine chugged and seemed very loud against the stillness of the surrounding sea.

Every instinct screamed at him to remain in the Commonwealth. He forced that feeling deep into a cage inside of himself. This intuition had to be continual dread over his identity as a synth. It was the only thing that made sense. Danse wasn’t a cowardly man and shying away from a mission went against his nature. A rescue attempt seemed a noble endeavor, even if it was under the authority of a degraded and obsolete synth. He felt a combination of guilt and pride knowing that, even as a synth himself, his model was still superior to Valentine’s.      

He had to go with them – boredom and sloth were the enemies of discipline, and he was beginning to be humiliated by his own complacency. He missed the importance of purpose, the security of structure and routine and direction, and the sense of doing good. The loss of comradery was evident, as well. Ingrained in his personality – or, his programming – Danse hated being alone. The Prydwen, the Citadel, field work and firefights – he always had someone else nearby. Since his identity was revealed, his only company had been John.

“You still seem pissed, and I don’t mean in a fun drunk way,” John said, appearing as if on cue. Danse watched him cross from the aft to lean on the guardrail beside him and gaze out over the drab ocean. The telltale fragrance of Jet lingered on his clothing.

“I’m…preoccupied,” Danse admitted, and tried to relax the stiff expression on his face. “I know it must seem as if I’m upset. That isn’t my intent.” Even though they were together again, they remained divided. The number of times he had taken his frustrations out on John was now sizable. John had put his life on hold to be present for Danse, and he couldn’t even forgive the texture of John’s skin. He felt wretched, and undeserving of such devotion. Coming up behind the ghoul, he put his arms around him, touching his forehead to the back of his neck. “I’m trying,” said Danse. It wasn’t an excuse, but he wanted John to know that he was aware of his actions.

“I know,” John answered, not quite forgiving, but at least understanding. He clutched at Danse’s wrists. “I also I get that the way I look makes you wanna yak. I can’t help that.”

Danse’s arms tightened in response. True, he lacked a physical attraction to him. Had he met John now, there would be no chance of an intimate relationship. It took effort for Danse to prevent the tip of his nose from settling into John’s nasal cavity when they kissed. When that would happen, it turned his stomach and broke the mood. He couldn’t begin to imagine what additional surprises lay in wait should they continue along a path to physicality. But memory was a much stronger influence; he had known John McDonough far longer than he had known Hancock. In brief instances, he was able to imagine supple skin and flowing hair. “I won’t lie and say that this is easy for me. I know it isn’t fair to ask you to be patient but… I want to do better. I want to _be_ better. And I don’t want to lose you while I fight to get there.” Danse settled his head into the curve of John’s neckline, between his head and shoulder. John angled his head to touch Danse’s.

They sailed past the remains of shipwrecks emerging from the ocean like the bones of gigantic nautical creatures. Land was spotted with greater frequency now and a large mass swelled in the distance. Danse felt a jolt underfoot as the boat switched gears and began to slow. An island loomed up before them. As the boat skimmed the coastline, he could make out houses that clung precariously to cliff walls amid a soupy fog that hugged the island. A long wooden wharf emerged from the gloom and the sharp smells of brine, dead fish, moldy wood and algae met his nose. Somewhere within the harbor community, a bell tolled slivery notes across the dusk sky. Blue lights dotted the edges of the town, spinning out a haze that eerily swirled from lampposts. A few bright yellow lanterns hung from pillars. The rest of the island was caked in darkness.

“Well, this place looks like it’s fallen out of a nightmare,” Valentine merrily piped, emerging from the cockpit, cigarette in hand. Caught, Danse released John and stepped to one side, his cheeks warming.

Their boat drifted to a crawl, the onboard computer searching for a place to moor. It pulled up to a free section of the wooden pier and the motors died. Attached to the dock was a seaside town with an expansive and decent-looking wharf strewn with pennants rubbed raw by the abrasive salt air. Rows of string lights danged between buildings, pinpricks of illumination in the prevalent darkness and oppressive fog rolling down from inland. The architecture was inventive, wooden structures woven together with siding likely scavenged from the shipwrecks in the harbor – masts and keels and boilers – and complimented by a few pre-war buildings on the outskirts.

A pair of inhabitants stood several paces down the dock, arguing. “Looks like we might get a frosty reception,” Valentine warned as they sailed closer. “John, keep your chems and your hands, to yourself. Danse, you might wanna keep both of your affiliations out of the picture – Brotherhood or synth.”

“Why would I publicly admit to being a synth?” Danse blurted. The thought was ludicrous. Too many people already knew about him. Sour at taking commands from some rusty android, Danse leapt from the boat and onto the dock as soon as it was near enough.  

John hoped down an instant later. “Nice, creepy town you got here,” he called out, pushing ahead and addressing the people on the dock.

Both Far Harbor residents turned to face them. “Are you lost?” a gray-haired woman asked.

“We don’t need no freeloaders or more _help_ ,” a bearded man in a knit cap growled at John. “’Specially from _your_ kind. Get back in your boat and leave.”

John’s attitude abruptly shifted from mildly amused to astringently annoyed, and Danse put himself between him and the seafarers. The woman seemed to pick up on the tone and admonished the ill-mannered man, stating, “Allen, this isn’t your dock.” The woman turned back to them, contrite. “Sorry about this.” She was older, with a hard edge of authority that Danse recognized at once. “What’s your business here?”

“We’re just looking for a girl,” Valentine explained, floating up like a ghost at Danse’s side. “Name’s Kasumi. Mighta come through these parts?”

“Sounds familiar. Maybe she did,” the woman said noncommittally, eyes narrowing as she studied Valentine.

“Fat lot of help this crone is,” John muttered into Danse’s ear. But Danse wasn’t paying him much attention. A flock of birds erupted from the inland tree line, their black shapes flapping out of the island’s clinging haze and circling wide over the ocean. Watching them, Danse’s senses immediately sharpened, and a primal surge of adrenaline made his limbs tingle.

Any further discussion halted as a rapid series of bells rang loud and clear. Another woman raced down a wide set of stairs to the dock. “Something’s coming!” she cried, rounding a corner and ascending a flight of stairs, disappearing among the roofs and tin awnings above the town.

Panic lit both Allen’s and the older woman’s eyes. “You. Help us,” the woman pleaded, fixating on Danse. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know after!” She and the insolent man took off running up the dock and into the town.

“Oh, _now_ you want our help,” John shouted after them as the two mariners raced up the stairs.

Out in the fog, something roared, thunderous and deep. Another bellow equal in volume responded. More and more sounded until the air practically vibrated. Danse picked up on the sounds of faint gunfire – deep shotgun booms and the erratic pops of individual shots – as voices cried out, the words indistinguishable at this distance. Panic fire. A team trapped in the fog was under assault.

“With me,” Danse commanded the others. He drew his rifle – _his_ rifle, that Sterling had gifted back to him – and sprinted down the dock, throwing himself up a series of stairways to find a row of tense harbormen all cowering behind their weapons. As he peered over the side of the rooftops, he caught sight of rudimentary fortifications flanking the gates leading into the town. Coils of barbed wire had been strung between great, jutting wooden spears set at angles. A few mines and scattered traps were sprinkled off in the distance. Those strange blue lights generated a twirling vapor that appeared to combat the heavy fog choking the roadways beyond the wall. Rumbling growls floated through the mist, the creatures uttering them just out of sight, hidden in the milky whiteness of fog. Several residents kneeled with their weapons by the gate in full, foolish view of whatever would be coming.

John appeared at one elbow, Valentine at the other. “Not quite the sleepy coastal town from the guidebooks,” the synth noted over the barrel of his revolver.

“Course there had to be some kinda rescue. This town already knows how to motivate me,” John lamented, pulling his pistols. “Deathclaw pack?” he guessed, his face partially lit by the charging plasma in one of his pistols.

“Unlikely,” Danse answered, shifting his rifle to butt against his shoulder, squinting into the fog, searching for movement. “Climate is inconsistent with their known habitats.”

“Guess you’d be the expert on monsters and how to blow them apart,” said Valentine, very matter-of-fact.

“I very much am.”

Another series of booming howls made the aluminum roof tremble beneath his feet. The outlines of enormous figures began to emerge from the mist. The shapes were all wrong for deathclaws – these creatures were rounded and hunched, still bipedal but more amphibious in nature. A few sported bioluminescent lures dangling from the crowns of their heads.

“Get up into position,” Danse hollered down at the habormen imprudently assembling at the foot of the gate. They looked up at him, confusion in their wide eyes. They maintained their location, despite Danse’s warning. Cries of ‘Defend _the Hull_ ’ were shouted up and down the defense line. Monsters roaring as they charged into full view. The entryway became a deafening place and weapons unloaded with cracks and booms. The few citizens at the gate were instantly slaughtered, torn apart by tooth and claw.

Danse fired. It had been far too long since he and Righteous Authority had brought death to the creatures of the Wastes. The rifle served as an extension of his arm, hot beams of red light landing precisely where he intended them to, burning neat wounds into the creatures as they threw themselves against the gates. Their smoldering bodies buried those of the dead harbormen beneath them.

The harbor put up an embarrassing display of defense, firing wildly into the mass of creatures that swarmed the entry. A few Molotov’s were cast, setting both their targets and the ramparts aflame. The older woman from the dock stood nearby, shouting commands over gunfire and the screams of the harbormen dying below. Danse made his way along the line, firing as he traversed. Reaching her, he shouted, “Stop wasting your ammunition and listen! The legs! Always cripple the legs!” This was common practice for anyone schooled in mutated creature extermination. “Once they’re down, you shoot them under the jaw. Can you follow that?”

She stared at him dumbly for a moment before calling out to her comrades, “The legs! Every one of you! Go for the legs!”

He took the initiative, barking instructions and running from rooftop to rooftop, behind the fire, reiterating commands as he maimed creature after creature. “Aim for the weak spots!” He finally took a full defensive position where the elevated platforms came together, the entire enclosure in view below him. When the last of the beasts had stumbled and fell, a mass of them remained thrashing and growling, staving off death, their enormous carcasses blocking the roadway. Danse took a breath and jumped down into the entry. Realizing too late that he wasn’t in his armor, he landed hard, the impact jarring his spine and sending pain to flare in his knees.

In a trashing heave, one of the beasts flung its head at him, gaping maw wide, rows of sharp teeth and strings of saliva exposed. On instinct, he fired, blowing the back of the creature’s head off. Recovering, he angled his laser rifle again and again, delivering instant mortality as he fired into the soft undersides the fallen beasts’ jaws. Striding from one lashing brute to another, dancing just out of reach of their swiping talons, he cleared the gateway until his only company were the smoking, mutated bodies of irradiated wildlife.

A cheer rose from the rooftops as Danse panted, splattered with gelatinous, dark green blood. His weapon remained in hand as he scanned the fog for any hint of movement. A few bangs and scrapes preceded the gates being thrown open. He cautiously backed into the safety of the wharf. Only when he was within its walls did he holster his rifle. The gates were left open as citizens climbed back down to the wharf, slapping each other on the back in congratulations and beaming at Danse. The older woman marched up to him, a smile cracking her weathered face. “Thank you. We may owe you our lives.”

“Have you lost your senses? Close that gate!” Danse snapped. “It’s a wonder that this town hasn’t fallen entirely. Were I waiting for the opportune time to attack the dock, it would be now, when defenses are low.” He was met by a few blank stares before a handful of people jumped into action, swinging the doors shut and barring them.

“Lookit you,” came John’s voice, as he made his way down from above, tucking his pistols back into his waistband, Valentine at his heels. “Always the boss.” The three of them met in a cluster by the entrance.

The bearded man from the dock, Allen, approached, raising his weapon once more.  “Humans only,” he stated. “No freaks allowed in Far Harbor.”

Danse halted, but John wasn’t swayed so easily. Brashly, John marched straight up to Allen, pushing his face so close that, had he still possessed a nose, theirs would have bumped. “We just defended your soggy town, friend. What makes you so damned superior?”

“I’m still alive. I ain’t no rotting corpse.” The muzzle of Allen’s assault rifle nudged John in the chest.

It was Valentine that interceded in time, catching John’s wrists as his hands slid towards his pistols. “Alright, kids. Settle down.”

Gingerly, Danse put a hand on John’s shoulder. That seemed to calm him, and he stepped back. “We’ll go,” Danse promised, steering John towards the archway to the dock, Nick joining them.

“Hey, man,” Allen continued, lifting his chin at Danse. “We’re not uncivilized xenophobes. You’re pretty alright for a foreigner. But the robot and the shuffler gotta go,” he demanded.

The slur at John forced hot blood to rush to fill Danse’s cheeks. The muscles in John’s shoulders tensed and Danse released him, his own fingers curling into fists. Valentine made a grab for Danse’s collar, forcefully whispering, “Can’t find answers if we’re all dead in a heap. Stay here. Learn something. We’ll be on the boat.” He jabbed a finger at John and raised his voice. “You. Stick close.” Reluctantly, John parted and followed Nick down the dock, barely taking his black eyes off Allen’s, who watched them depart with a tight-fisted grip on his gun.

Danse felt torn watching them go. Although his memories were currently caged in a broken-down synth, Nick Valentine had existed, had been a real person. Up until a few years ago, John had been an elite resident of Diamond City with smooth, intact skin. Of the three of them, Danse was the only one to be a complete fabrication… and the only one to look human. With his growing beard and sun-beaten skin, he bore a resemblance to any other fisherman that might pass through the town. Alone now, this was the angle he would have to use – seeming normal. 

The older woman reappeared by the pier entrance.  “Thank you, mainlander. Here” – she held out a bag of caps, which Danse waved away, failing to keep the repugnance off his face.

“That defense was sloppy and humiliating,” he admonished, crossing his arms. “I was ashamed to have been part of it. It’s impressive that any of you survived. This can’t have been the first attack on your town. Who oversees your security?”  

“Largely, I do.” Her mouth had turned down at his raging disapproval. “I’m Captain Avery. I’m the one in charge of the Harbor. I know that I lack the training to build a better means of protection,” she humbly added, a hind of sadness behind her eyes. She watched as the people of the harbor dissipated. “Most of us have only recently moved here. The Fog has been pushing us further and further out to sea each year.”

“What do you mean by _the fog_?” The way she spoke, it sounded ominous. 

“The fog is radioactive. Blankets most of the island. You’ve seen what lives in it.”

“And that ain’t even the real problem,” Allen added, joining her side. Danse’s nerves were still firing over the gruff dismissal of his cohorts. “Give me enough guns and hands and I’ll end those Children of Atom once and for all.”

“You have those cultists on the island?” Danse asked, although his knowledge of them was only in passing. Radiation worshipers were scattered throughout the Capitol. One group had tried to sabotage one of the water supplies, which was the only reason that Danse recalled those zealots at all.

“Those rad eaters are feeding the Fog, mark my words.” He shook a fist in emphasis and faced Avery. “Let me deal –”

“You did, Allen. And now matters are only worse. Go,” she told him. Allen threw her a venomous look and turned his back on them, disappearing into one of the storefronts.

“Sorry about that. Every town has their resident troublemaker, right?” Avery said, her attention back on Danse. “Kasumi, you said? Yes, she came through here. She headed up to that synth refuge, Acadia.”

Something dropped hard in Danse’s stomach. “A… a synth refuge?” he stammered.

She nodded. “Quite a bit inland. You could ask Old Longfellow to show you the way. Sure as rain, you’ll find him at the bar.” She pointed down the pier.

Danse gave a swift jerk of his head, acknowledging her suggestion and found himself passing by crates of hide and leather bundles and counters full of fish, traveling towards a building named _The Last Plank_. An ill-omened title, as venturing into a nest of synths was at the bottom of Danse’s list of desires.

Upon entry into the establishment, he discovered where the rest of the townsfolk had vacated to. A muddled cheer rang through the bar at his appearance, patrons toasting him with dusty bottles and dirty glasses from tabletops, booths and upper levels. The barkeep shoved a free beer into his hand and clapped him on the back. A fisherman launched into a bawdy drinking song, swiftly joined by others.

_We said a prayer, they were everywhere_

_Marchin’ through the fog_

_Then, a stranger came, don’t know his name_

_That saved our briny town_

_And down they went_

_Thank God they sent_

_The hero of the Hull!_

_Was no time to mull_

_Fucked ‘em through the skull!_

_He’s the hero of the Hull!_

_No, life ain’t dull_

_With the hero of the Hull!_

In drunken merriment, more harbormen joined in on the song, interjecting new lyrics all the while. Danse wanted to sink straight through the floor. He would rather this mockery of a battle be forgotten entirely. As he sank back from the crowd, an older man sitting in a corner snagged his attention.

“Saw you on the Hull,” the man said, gestured at Danse with his vodka bottle. “Been a long time since I’ve seen that kinda precision. You’ve been a soldier, haven’t you?” he asked in a time-graveled voice.

“I…I served three tours with the NCR,” Danse answered, pulling a faction out of the air. He drank his beer to hide his discomfort. Lies had never been his strongest suit.

“That so?” The man’s hair and beard contained more salt than pepper. “Long way from home.”

“Yes. You could say that.”

“You got a wife back there?”

The back of his neck burned hot. “I…No. I don’t.” Danse supposed that he had John, although it wasn’t quite the same thing. He put his mouth on John’s and took comfort in his presence, but too many questions left Danse nervous. His anxiety and John’s appearance made for… poor bedfellows.

“Name’s Longfellow,” the man said, rescuing Danse from his disquieting thoughts.

“Daniel,” was the name Danse gave in return, preferring to leave his surname out of the annals of Far Harbor history. Danse took another swig from his bottle. Nearly all the harbormen were clad in at least one piece of the same odd, olive-hued leather, the effect making them look so similar that he had trouble telling them apart.

“You heading out into the island?” Longfellow asked, taking a swig of his drink.

“It appears so.” Danse took a seat next to him. “I was told that you could take my group up to a place called Acadia.”

Longfellow gave him a slightly intoxicated smile and leaned in closer. The man stank of alcohol. The potency of it almost made Danse’s eyes water. “Son, do you even know what you’re in for out there? Those Children of Atom…they grab folks. Haul them away. Trappers, too.”

“What are _trappers_?” Danse hated feeling underprepared, and this island was taking its toll.

“Vicious men that rove the Island, driven mad by the fog,” was the tale Longfellow told. “Move in big bands together. Good luck taking those bastards down.”

“I believe that I’m quite capable of handling myself.” He had to wonder why Avery suggested he find this old lush.

The old man laughed, throwing his head back and cackling until his cheeks turned red. “Son, I have no doubt,” Longfellow agreed, and took a drink. He fished in a pocket, pulling a key which he handed to Danse. “It’s gettin’ late. Take your friends up to my place. Don’t get your hopes up – it’s just a little cabin past a sandbar.”

Timidly, Danse accepted the key. “You’d do that for us? Why?”

Longfellow settled back in his chair with a lazy smile. Though his mirth had faded, pinkness still stained his face. “Not every day that ditties get made up about mainlanders. The island is gonna remember you. Besides, won’t be the first time Mitch has let me sleep it off upstairs. I’ll guide you up the trail tomorrow. Just don’t wake me – I’ll find you when I’m ready.”

Danse stood to leave. “Thank you. I…I don’t know what to say.” As he walked away, he could hear Longfellow humming a few bars of _The Hero of the Hull_.


	4. Who We Are Now

JOHN

Far Harbor, ME

February 23rd, 2288

From a distance, John and Nick probably looked like two gaunt men in bizarre clothing, smoking down to the bottom of their cigarette packs while waiting by the Nakano boat. A restless edge challenged John’s temper. Danse, for all his military poise and battle efficiency, was a piss-poor liar. It’d be easier to sneak back into Far Harbor and yank off some fingernails for answers. Clearly, the harbormen weren’t all saints. John would start with that bluster-fuck, Allen.   

By the time Danse reappeared to retrieve them, the night had turned chilly and starless. He led them back through the wharf and out of town, past the corpses of the island’s beast being butchered for meat, and along a rocky shoreline littered with debris, flotsam, and the jutting bones of long-dead creatures. A few nuclear-powered streetlamps burned bright, now and forever, lighting their way.

They passed through a thin white haze, rolling fluidly through the night. John felt a tingle as he stepped through it, almost as if he’d been plunged into a cold bath. It felt invigorating, and his senses immediately honed. Neither Nick nor Danse seemed to notice though, and John dismissed the sensation as a misfire from his chem-burnt brain. The feeling clung to him for some time, until their group left the mainland and its fog behind, continuing along an isthmus towards a shadowy lump of land offshore. Their path was precarious, placing careful footsteps on slick rock and slogging through the surf, and they were all soaked past their knees when they arrived at a simple cabin out on a quiet knoll flanked by more of those odd blue lamplights spinning out vapor.

“The two of you should head inside,” Nick advised, wringing saltwater from the hem of his coat. “Sleep and warmth aren’t things I require to function. But I’ll take some smokes if you’ve got ‘em.” John parted with a pack of cigarettes and Nick touched the brim of his hat in thanks. “I’ll try to figure out what the deal with these puppies are,” he offered, kicking at a pole that housed one of the strange blue lights at the top. “Though the morning might find me rusted solid like the Tin Man I am. This climate ain’t doing me any favors.”

“Appreciated,” Danse said, nodding to Nick, and John couldn’t have been prouder of him. Danse was being forced to reassemble his views and, although he had a long way to go, he seemed to be on the right path. Seeing him launch into a leadership role during the harbor attack was exactly what John had hoped for, and now he was even being decent to Nick. As the two of them entered the quaint cabin, he held onto those thoughts.

“Seems like you had a hell of a night,” John said, dumping his pack on the floor and fumbling in the dark. He found an oil lamp and reached for his lighter. A warm orange glow filled the room. There wasn’t much to see – a bed and dresser, a dining table, a worn-out couch and a serviceable kitchenette scattered with empty bottles and maritime trinkets. John could just barely make out the dull pounding of the surf against the islet. Boarded windows blocked most of the ocean’s draft and provided a comforting sense of seclusion.

“Yes, I suppose that is one accurate description,” Danse agreed, sliding the shoulder strap of his rifle off and gently laying his weapon on the table. Crossing to the couch, he sat heavily with a thump and let his head fall back, heaving a sigh, spreading his arms over the back.

John watched him for a moment, turning his lighter over in one hand. A few scattered candles sat on the table; he lit those as well. He pocketed the lighter and glanced back at Danse. He looked more rugged now with his shaggy hair and beard, but the candlelight softened his features, smoothing out his scars and making him look younger and peaceful. John arranged his pistols on the bedside dresser and trimmed the intensity of the oil lamp before approaching Danse.

Seeing him in action had been arousing – Danse’s deep voice had sounded so confident and domineering, the movements of his thickly-built body a well-rehearsed dance, the fire in his eyes electrifying. John had never been shy about what he coveted. If he wanted to get high, he found chems. If he wanted to get drunk, he found beers. Now, he wanted this glorious man, all muscle and solid features, tall and so... familiar. He eased one knee down on the couch cushion before throwing the other over Danse, settling into his lap, his leather pants squeaking as they stretched.

Danse raised his head and gave a lazy smile. “I thought I wasn’t your type.”

“I’m a liar,” John whispered, tilting his head to tug at Danse’s ear with his teeth. “You’re exactly my type.” When they kissed, John pressed himself against him, rolling his body, those damn leather pants feeling tight in the crotch. Danse trembled beneath him, and John could feel his big hands roam along the small of his back, fingers daring to skim over his hips. The kiss continued, deepening, wet and breathless, and John heard the ocean roaring in his ears, though he supposed it was only the rush of his own blood.

Danse broke away, taking John by the shoulders and holding him at arm’s length. “Your boots are wet.”

“Jeez, buddy,” John chuckled. Still the same Danse – propriety before pleasure. He rolled off Danse to remove his wet boots and caught himself smiling. John had forgotten that falling in love was addictive. That rush of excitement, of anticipation, and the giddy feeling that left him light-headed. He knew this dance well and craved it more than chems or nicotine. This was rarer and, for that reason, more precious. Laying every card he had on the table, John admitted, “I never stopped loving you.”

Danse’s mouth opened and he stared. Struggling to find the words, Danse swallowed hard and shook his head. “I want to say it, I do. I…I don’t know why I can’t...”

John’s heartbeat faltered, and he felt crushed, frozen in place. His own fault, really. He shouldn’t have been surprised. John had always been the romantic while Danse leaned heavily on dignity. He swallowed, coaxed his smile back to life and softly traced the scar on Danse’s brow. “We’ve done this before. You’ll get there.”

Flinching, Danse’s gaze dropped to the floorboards. “How we left things in Hartford…”

 _Goddammit._ John lowered his hand as his smile fled. He rose off the couch and took a few paces, putting distance between them. “I don’t wanna talk about Hartford.” Events in Hartford had marked the end of five years they had spent together. This was the last topic that John wanted to discuss. To this day, it made his stomach churn with self-doubt and humiliation.

But Danse kept talking. “What you offered… did you even want that?”

John unzipped his jacket and squirmed out of it, biding time to give his answer. The leather felt cool and tacky from the salt air. He stared at nothing, jagged memories skipping through his mind like a damaged movie reel at a drive-in. “It felt like we were coming apart. Was tired of missing you, tired of fighting. Thought if something changed, it might fix everything.”

“Because we were broken?” Danse ventured. His voice was quiet, but the question was needle-sharp.

John bunched the jacket in his hands. “Yeah…” he answered slowly. “We were broken.” The honesty wasn’t refreshing, it was painful. Releasing his jacket, he draped it over a chair. He felt skinny and exposed in his white undershirt, allowing Danse too much of his shredded skin to consider.

Springs in the couch creaked as Danse stood. He felt a hand on his shoulder as Danse turned him, kissing him solidly. “I’ll never stop being sorry for my actions,” Danse said, placing hands upon John’s narrow hips and looking deep into his eyes. “I… I know that doesn’t change anything.”

A small smile crept back onto John’s face. “Won’t lie. It helps some.” He folded Danse’s jacket back, pulling it off his shoulders. “I want you to be happy. Not _good enough, gettin’ by_ happy, but really, fuckin’ honestly joyful to be alive.”

Again, Danse pulled away, his expression troubled. “Without you, I ceased to exist as an individual. I became my Brotherhood responsibilities and nothing more. You’re going to have to be patient with me.” He heaved a shaky sigh. “This process of… being with you… it’s difficult and… so very complicated. In rare moments, I don’t see you as you are. I see you as I remember, as my John.”

Snagging him by the pants, John hauled him closer, lips teasing over Danse’s. “ _Yours_?”

“Yes.” Danse seized John’s mouth with his, shrugging the rest of the way out of his jacket and discarding it. The tension between them dissolved, and Danse melted into him, inhibitions draining away. Fire pooled in the air between them as they both struggled to shed clothing. Time was swollen and heavy, and words felt stupid – they always got in the way, stalling them. Nothing John could say would be able to translate the conjunction of rapid-fire thoughts and initiative growing inside of him.

Finally, free of their apparel, they stood panting, foreheads together as their heaving chests met. Being naked in front of someone, no matter how one felt about the other, was always nerve-wracking. Danse trailed one hand down the ripples of hardened scars covering John’s abdomen. It tickled, making John shudder and sending a surge straight through his insides. Once again, Danse drew back, letting his hand fall. He took a seat on the bed but didn’t meet John’s eyes.

Disappointment sank into John’s belly. He sighed and stood straight, ripples of candlelight dancing along the ridges of his flesh. “Dan, look at me.” Audibly swallowing, Danse didn’t respond. “Dan. Please,” John tried again. Danse dragged apprehensive eyes over John’s boney body. John McDonough had always been a thin man. As Hancock, he knew that he was positively cadaverous. Once, Danse had looked at him with such hunger and adoration in his eyes that it stole his breath away. Now, all they had were closed-eyed kisses and moments cut short. John turned his palms out in a defeated shrug. “This is who we are now. Can’t change that. This is still me. This is me and I want you. Factory-fresh synth or not, I’ve always wanted you.” Rare and hot shame stirred in his chest. He cursed at his younger self for ever touching that rad-chem. “I never thought I’d see you again. Thought I’d die in the State House and nothing else would matter. But things didn’t work out like that. We’re here again and, holy shit, Dan… I don’t want everything ruined because I had to go and fuck up my face.”

Danse nodded at the floor. “I…understand. I’m upset with myself, not with you.”

Moving to sit beside him, John leaned to kiss Danse’s back, laying hands on him. Danse lurched away, pitching forward and almost off the bed. John exhaled and leaned back, pulling his hands from Danse’s shoulders. “Gonna be a long night if you keep changing your m –”

“I haven’t been with anyone since you,” Danse sputtered in a rush. “I… I suppose the truth is that I’ve only been with you. My memories of Cutler… they never happened.”

Nerves. Nerves hadn’t really occurred to John. He had been so fixated on Danse’s history of narrowmindedness that he had neglected to imagine him as a lonely soldier with only his duty and beliefs to keep him warm at night. How long had it been? Five years? Almost six? Danse hadn’t replaced him with someone else, and John supposed that he should have been relieved. But being compared to his former self raised unbidden insecurities. “Guess we got some catching up to do,” he said, with a confidence that he no longer felt. “If…you want to?”

“God, yes. I want to.” Danse seized one of John’s hands and held it close to his heart. “And I want it to be with you. I just… I keep sabotaging myself. Analyzing. Overthinking. It’s been some time and you’ve been… popular.”

“I’m… what?” John blinked at him.

Danse fidgeted, rubbing John’s hand between his own. “I apologize for not saying anything earlier. I didn’t think we’d… get to this point. But, I’m not a fool. I know how Goodneighbor operates. The chems and the… clientele. I’m… well, I’m not sure how this synthetic body can fight off maladies.”

Well. Danse’s candor was in top form. His insinuations made John feel dirty in the worst possible way. He wasn’t mistaken – John, in his mayoral splendor, had been lax in selecting sexual partners... and in sharing needles. Faced with the combination of a rad-wasted and possible contaminated body, no wonder Danse had balked at a physical relationship. Caught off-guard, John stammered, “I… it’s... that isn’t a thing with ghouls. One of the few perks – something in the rads kill off everything. Being with me, it isn’t a risk. I goddamn promise,” he assured.

Danse took John’s face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs across worn cheeks. They kissed and embraced, sinking back onto the bed as their bodies entangled, all the while John struggling to release the fear of judgment or scrutiny and simply surrender to pure sensation. The tables had turned, and now they were both anxious. The action was slow to get going, with a lot of false starts, fumbling and tension. John kept Danse’s back to him, sparing him the full experience of watching a ghoul loom over him, twining their fingers, showering him with affection and aggressive kisses spreading from Danse’s ears down the back of his neck and across his shoulders. “Keep talking,” Danse breathed, prone beneath him. “It helps. I need to know that this is you.”

John scrabbled for what to say. “You remember the first time?”

“Alexandria?”

“Yeah.” A hand slid down Danse’s back and passed over his hip, trailing lower, keeping their fingers laced in the other hand. “You remember what I did to you?”

Danse released a shaky breath. “Everything that I asked for.” He was squirming now, grinding down into the mattress.

John dragged his lower lip up Danse’s neck as he moved against him. “You begged me.” He sucked on his neck, tasting salt from both the air and Danse’s sweat.

Danse’s grip could have easily broken John’s hand. “I did.”

“You didn’t know who I was. But you wanted _me_.” John found the warmth he was searching for and when their bodies interlocked Danse gave a strangled cry that sounded delectable. “You… wanted… _this_.” He moved with every word. Danse groaned and strained against him. Heat burned in his groin. Danse felt hot and tight and fabulous. “You…asked me…in _vivid_ … _fucking_ … _detail_. Remember?”

“Yes. _Yes_.”

He bit Danse’s shoulder, taking gentle mouthfuls of supple flesh between his teeth, muffling his own cries as Danse twisted beneath him, quaking and moaning, the pressure within their laced hand so intense that John could feel bone shifting. His body tensed, muscles locking, leaving him gasping into Danse’s neck, a foggy fuck euphoria making his head swirl. Endorphins flooded, resulting in a heady, incomparable high.

It was all over too soon. They didn’t move, shivering together as cold ocean air sneaked in through cracks in the windows to chill their sweat. Eventually, John collapsed beside his partner, resting against his shoulder. Danse swept him into a sideways embrace, wrapping one arm around the underside of John’s neck, a hand reaching up to cradle his head, nestling closer. They lay like that for several precious minutes. John roused himself, slipping out of Danse’s arms and crouching to dig through their supplies. As he returned to the bed with a package of RadAway, Danse asked, “Is that necessary?”

“Every time.”

Danse didn’t even pause, replying, “Alright”, in a steady voice.

John took Danse’s hand, and with practiced fingers, nimbly slid the needle into a vein on the inside of Danse’s forearm. John squeezed the bag, pushing the contents into Danse’s system. With Danse properly dosed, they got up long enough to fill their bellies, splitting a can of chips and a box of cold Salisbury steak between them. They shared the same toothbrush before falling into each other’s arms again. The bed was small. They only fit due to Danse wrapping thick arms around John and holding him close. John clung to him, back in Danse’s embrace again after all this time and against all odds.

He was home.


	5. Consolation

DANSE

Shadow Ridge, RI

March 15th, 2279

Panting from exertion, Danse lay on his back, the threadbare sheet below damp with perspiration. His hands rose to lace with John’s, pulling him down and holding him close. His heart pounded up through his chest to rattle John’s ribcage with throbbing force. John’s body was all angles where Danse’s was rounded with muscle, yet they fit together easily.

John chuckled into Danse’s chest. “I can’t feel my legs.” He shook his hair back and brought trusting eyes up. His hazel irises appeared smoky green today, and his hair was wild and enormous. He kissed his way up Danse’s chest as far as he could reach, still watching him with an intent stare.

“We’re sweaty,” Danse wheezed in meek objection.

John’s eyes danced mischievously. Lurching forward, he dragged his tongue up the side of Danse’s face, headless of beard growth. “Claimed.”

Giving a startled cry, Danse dodged away. His fingers dug into John’s sides in retaliation, making the blonde jerk and wriggle in his clutches. John laughed breathlessly as he fought to free himself.

He had grown to look forward to long hours of deep sleep without dreams, effortless intimacy unblemished by questions or doubt, and the adoration in the eyes of the man with the yellow hair that was reserved exclusively for him. It was a shame that their ideologies differed, as John would have made an excellent proctor one day.

Following his previous leave, Danse had been promptly greeted with an unexpected medical evaluation by Citadel personnel. He had panicked, fearing that trace amounts of Calmex in his system would cost him his career. However, the response from the medical officer had taken Danse by surprise, commending his use of the drug, amazed that Danse had even located the vials to begin with. ‘Share some with your Brothers next time. They could probably all use a dose.’ He hadn’t been let off the hook entirely. Only after a stern warning to never take Calmex while on active duty, had the issue been dropped. The caution was unmerited. He only took the drug when on leave with John, as he was the one providing it, and he took it less often then when he began.

Rolling off him, John began the typical search for clothing in their aftermath. A few beams of indirect morning sunlight spilled in through a broken window, making his loose hair appear gilded. They had taken up residence inside a gas station garage with comparable living quarters set up inside of it. Coming across locations with legit beds were rare and they made ample use of them when found. The frame of either a Corvega or a Coupe, striped down for parts, took up much of the floor space in the garage. A doorway linked the garage to a less-secure reception area with wide windows. Danse had blocked that door with shelving, a tool cabinet, and several tires.

Having located his pants, John slipped into them sans underwear before dropping to his knees to find his combat boots. “Come back to bed,” Danse rumbled in a thick voice, holding out his hand.

John tossed his shoes into the middle of the garage and sat up. Sliding a band around his hair, he shook his head. “Unless you’re lookin’ for me to smoke in here, I’m gonna pop out.”

John’s smoking was a hazardous and disgusting habit, and Danse was one of the few people he knew that hadn’t picked it up. When they kissed, it was a toss up to which was worse, the acrid taste of cigarettes or the pungent flavor of Jet. _No_ , Danse decided, _it was_ _definitely the Jet_. But since they’d met, John had cut way back on chem use during their visits, and Danse was proud of him. He only stole away for cigarettes now.

John shook out his shirt and forced his arms through the sleeves. Pulling his bracers on, his hands danced as he worked the laces, daylight flashing off his rings in tiny white bursts. The smallest finger on his right hand was bare.

“You have space for another ring.”

John paled and froze. “Never say that to me,” he said, blond eyebrows meeting in a crinkled V over the bridge of his nose. The final lace was tied with an abrupt tug. He didn’t look at Danse and sank to the floor to strap up his boots. “Headin’ out for a bit. Don’t wait.”

A peculiar sense of confusion settled on him and Danse wasn’t sure what he had done wrong. He was out of bed and into his civvy clothes – a basic tee and jeans – before John had finished securing his boot laces around the ankles of his pants. He sank down so that they were on an even level. “John… I’m not sure what offended you but, please… I want to know.”

John’s gaze was blank. Having finished tying his laces, he sat on the floor of the garage, staring at tiny roots poking up through cracks in the concrete. “Yeah… sure I’ve got space. But I ain’t about to add one.” The fingers of one hand brushed over the adornments of the other. “My rings… they’re for the people I’ve gotten killed.”

“I… didn’t know that.” Danse’s confusion settled into a type of cowed submission, and he settled beside him.

“I won’t add any more. _I can’t_ ,” John insisted, old pain tracing lines on his face. “Especially not one for you. Never for you.” He looked so distraught that Danse enfolded him in his arms. John returned the embrace. “I love you, Dan,” he said into Danse’s shoulder.

Words deserted Danse. He couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound exceptionally insincere. He had freely said the words to Cutler, whispered it as they stood in trenches waiting for Enclave attacks, or nights alone on patrol, whenever they found themselves alone. But with John, the words refused to manifest. He couldn’t risk being laid open, his soul crushed and bleeding. Not again. He wouldn’t survive it. Danse slid out of his arms. “John… we’ve discussed this.”

Hanging his head, John asked, “…are you with someone else? At your base?”

Danse rose off the floor. “Don’t be absurd.” An open homosexual relationship at the Citadel. Preposterous. John had lost his mind. “I’m not _with_ anyone else. I can barely handle the strain of being with you.”

“What the fuck you mean by that?” John rumbled, hazel eyes clouding over.

The reality of Danse’s comment sank in and he nearly regretted lashing at John with such a harsh tone. “Look, I’m doing the best I can. I don’t enjoy deceit or leaping through hoops to connect you. But I have appearances to keep up. I have to… maintain a certain amount of emotional distance –”

“To hell with your rep.” John gave a snorting laugh. “For fuck’s sake, Dan – what are we doing?” His eyes were sharp and unforgiving. “What do you want out of me?”

That damned confusion came back. Things had come from lovely to complicated in under five minutes. “For things to stay exactly as they are,” Danse asserted. “ _This_ is what I want. You and me. Where and when we can.”

“And if I want more?”

More? What more could there be? Keeping John at arm’s length was essential to his own survival. “There’s no _more_ that I can accommodate. Given my career, this is the only –”

John sprang to his feet, his features sliding into an angry glare. “I know damn well about your career.” He bit into his lip before continuing. “Any time there’s a flash, a burst of orange at the edge of my perception… it’s always _Invictus_ , going down. Every single time. You’ve been blown apart dozens of times. I’ve _seen_ it.” He tapped wildly against his temple. “I’ve seen you burning in the streets, raiders stringing up your body, mutants hacking you apart. ‘Birds go down all the time. And monsters, they get lucky.” A slew of emotions made the muscles of John’s face and jaw twitch. “I’m given the luxury of waiting. Maybe you’ll send a message when you can. Or you won’t. Or can’t. How would I ever know the guy in that bird wasn’t you? Or even if it was?” He looked haunted, terrified. “You’re kept outta my reach. I _cannot_ get to you. Fuck. Dan… if you die, who’s gonna tell me?”

Danse adored John. He did. He was fun and daring and made him happy. And although he wanted to put John’s fears to rest, he wouldn’t lie. “Don’t laugh at the cliché, but this isn’t about you. I don’t think you understand the gravity of my situation.” There were rumors that circled that Citadel every so often, like cautionary tales. “If I were to be caught with you… In the best of scenarios, I would be sent away to serve with some other division, assuming one would take me once they were given disclosure about my true nature. If I was allowed to remain in my current location, I would be ridiculed and threatened, every order I gave questioned and mocked until my rank was taken. In the worse of scenarios, I would simply disappear in the night, dragged off by my lesser-tolerant Brothers. Perhaps my body would be located. Perhaps it wouldn’t. Perhaps I’d be displayed as a warning. No matter what, the life I know, everything that I’ve worked so hard for would be lost.”

The hurt in John’s eyes had calmed, replaced with open distaste. “Then fuck all that. Just be done with them and do what you really want.”

“Being a valued member of the Brotherhood _is_ what I want. Nothing else comes close.”

John looked like he had been punched in the gut. “So, I’m your plaything.”

Danse immediately regretted his words and looked away, not wanting to witness John’s hurting. John had been working so hard, cutting back on the chems and the smoking and watching his foul mouth all for the sake of making Danse more comfortable. He wanted to put his hands on John’s shoulders and comfort him with untruths, anything to avoid his broken expression. “Look, I understand that I’ve put you in an unfair situation. But I cannot make the option of open contact with me a reality. It’s too risky and out of my control.”

“Because you don’t give two shits about me.” He looked up in time to catch John tapping his chest for emphasis. “I’m the kind of guy that says it. And you’re the kind of guy that doesn’t say it back.”

“John…” Danse struggled with his temper before continuing. “You know that isn’t true.”

“Then just _say it_.” His wide eyes pleaded. “You really intend to die on some battlefield and leave me alone wondering if this was ever even anything?”

Danse threw up his hands and stepped backwards. Did John really think that he was such an awful soldier to be brought down by some random accident? John wasn’t part of anything, a leaf in the wind, and it was no wonder that he didn’t grasp that gravity of Danse’s position. “I don’t _intend_ to, no. And I’m not going to get drawn into this conversation with you _again_. You just have to trust me. Everything will be fine.”

“For you,” John said, nodding, his glare full of venom. “Everything will be fine for _you_. I could get eaten by goddamned bugs and nothing would change _for you_.” They were circling each other like two deathclaws fighting for dominance.

Danse gave a disgusted grunt. He marched over to his supply pack and dug all the way to the bottom. Stalking back, he shoved a canister into John’s hands. “If you’re so worried, _here_. That’s a vertibird signal grenade. If I’ve missed some grand deadline between us and you assume me lost, throw it. Any nearby patrols will see the smoke and come straight for it. Ask for confirmation of my demise. If I’m deceased, that knowledge will become public. But you’d better be damned convinced I’m dead first.”

John frowned at the grenade in his hand. “I feel like this is a crappy consolation prize for not letting me into your life.”

“The Brotherhood _is_ my life!” Danse was yelling now, his voice rattling off the metal walls of the garage. Why was this concept so impossible for John to grasp? “I suppose it’s easy to condemn the actions of my Brothers and Sisters from your well-off home in the Commonwealth! You don’t fight for the world the way I do! You openly criticize the status quo but refuse to do a damned thing to incite neither justice nor order in this Godforsaken Wasteland.”

John blinked at him through huge eyes. “And how the fuck I am supposed to do that? I’m just one guy – you’re part of an army!”

“You can start by spending less time worrying about your next fix and, instead, doing something that actually matters,” Danse spat. That was a low blow, but he was too far gone to stop his words. “Until that time, don’t you dare lecture me on what’s important. Is that understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” John gibed, quiet rage written all over his face. He spun and slammed a hand down on the garage door release button. As it cranked open, he snatched his bag from the corner where he had stowed it, dropping the grenade inside. Taking a rifle in one hand, he marched outside into brilliant sunlight before the gears had even stopped rolling.

Trying to call John’s bluff, Danse’s snorted, “Really? You’re walking back to Massachusetts?”

John waved a middle finger over his shoulder and kept on walking. Danse watched his departing back for a full minute. They had shared a number of non-verbal good-byes before, but none like this. This was the first instance where they parted without a gesture or a touch. This time it hurt. Something had splintered between them. They had come apart, cracked like a rotten log.

Danse stalked back to the bed and began stuffing his belongings into a rucksack with such force that the bag almost tore. John wasn’t a fool. He’d come to his senses and apologize, realizing Danse’s position and the limitations therein. Danse was in the right, and until the point where John came begging for forgiveness, he could wait. He slung his pack over his shoulder and made for _Invictus_ , parked atop a nearby convenience store roof. He had plenty of crucial work to do back at the Capital. Danse was an important man and his time was valuable.

It was almost easy to push thoughts of John aside.     


	6. The Precipice of Greatness

DANSE

Far Harbor, ME

February 24th, 2288

Danse couldn’t recall the dream that roused him. The one-room cabin was cool when he woke, filled with the freshness of sea mist and morning dew. Waves tumbled against the shore outside, and a few fingers of muddled daylight filtered in through cracks in the boarded-up windows. Danse felt an odd sense of accomplishment at having slept through the night unassisted by Calmex. John had scratched his back soothingly until he had fallen asleep. Yet another of their habits that he had failed to remember.

Did he love John? How could he? Danse winced, doubting that he ever really had – a machine could act as if it understood the complexity of human intimacy, but couldn’t truly feel it. To believe otherwise was preposterous. And blasphemous. But this body was human enough and had all the necessary nerve endings for sexual endeavors. Odd and disturbing that the Institute had included that aspect of synth construction. He wished that he could revel in the body John was in instead of submerging himself in a fantasy. Danse’s deep-seated ghoul bias hiccupped their progress. He wasn’t pleased by it. But ghoul-John wasn’t squishy or decaying, and the appalling horror that once accompanied the thought of laying with a ghoul was swiftly diminishing in the wake of John’s affections.

Pawing for John, Danse found the rest of the bed cold and empty. He sat up in alarm. It was uncommon that John would rise before him. As he dressed, he spotted one of Curie’s syringes laying empty in the cabin sink. Outside, he found John quietly tending to a cooking fire out front, sitting on a rock the size of an armchair as he stirred a pot. “Morning, sunshine,” he beamed at Danse while straining something steaming into a mug. He was back in his leathers, the flag tied at his hip.

Watching his footing down broken steps from the porch, Danse joined him by the fire, and extended his cold fingers out to the flames. A rich aroma wafted, and when John handed him a mug, he graciously took it and sat down beside him. Looking down at the liquid, he smiled. He drank it and sighed. John had always gotten the ratio just right; he steeped it smooth and robust, not at all the bitter brew that others concocted. “I’ve missed your coffee. Mess officers tend to insist on generating sludge.” He regarded John and gave a short laugh. “And I miss your hair.”

“Yeah, it was pretty fabulous,” John agreed, sipping his coffee, hand brushing over the bandana concealing his baldness.

Danse’s cheeks felt tight. How long had it been since he smiled for any other reason than over vocational success? They sat together before the fire, mugs heating their hands, knees and shoulders touching on one side. Warmed by hot drink and the memory of their ardor the night prior, he took hold of the other John’s face by the chin. He put his mouth on John’s, kissing him down into his soul and past that ghastly exterior. Danse was proud to have initiated it. Their passionate, impromptu kiss ended with John sucking on Danse’s fat lower lip, making him groan.

Someone coughed. “I’d say _get a room_ but that part’s obviously been handled. Now, if you’re quite finished with one another, we’ve still got a case to solve.”

They drew apart to find Nick Valentine watching a few feet away with a smug look on his rubber face. “Guess the jig is up,” John mumbled, pouring his cooled coffee back into the pot. 

Danse realized why Valentine left them alone last night, and what he’d expected them to do. He kept waiting for his face to turn hot with embarrassment, but with John’s warm presence nestled up against him, humiliation didn’t manifest. As the surf pounded against the islet’s shore, the Institute and the rules of the Codex seemed very far away. Danse exhaled, feeling a fair amount of relief at not having to hide anymore. A life without fear of discovery. _My God. What would that be like?_ Danse couldn’t imagine it.

“Figured I’d give you the head’s up,” Valentine cautioned, a steady trail of smoke from his cigarette tip wafting into the air. “Company’s coming.”

Danse slid off the rock and smoothed his clothes, standing not quite at attention but close. A growing respect emerged for Valentine – despite what he was and his horrifying appearance, he’d assembled a respectable life for himself. Maybe Danse, whose body passed as human, could one day do the same.

Longfellow appeared out of the mist, black coat swinging past his knees. He looked at each of them in turn through hangover-puffed eyelids. “Hmph. Well, least I only gotta worry about one of you being affected by the fog.”

Glancing about, Danse noticed that he alone was at a disadvantage. John and Valentine wouldn’t be impacted in the same manner that he would be. He’d experienced a bad brush with radiation sickness while on assignment once and was in no hurry to relive the experience. “I’ll get my supplies,” he said, nodding. He ventured back into the cabin, John sticking to him like a shadow. After slinging the strap of his rifle across his body, he sorted provisions for the trip inland.

“Ya know,” John said, checking the ammo on his pistols. “It’s only a matter of time before your Steel pals coming knocking in Sanctuary. Say I asked you to come back to Goodneighbor with me – would you go?”

“I… No… Not yet,” Danse answered, shaking a few tablets of Rad-X into his palm. Appearing together in a busy Commonwealth town would raise too many questions. Questions that Danse wasn’t ready to answer. And a Goodneighbor lifestyle was almost worse than no life at all.

“Because I run it like a hovel for ingrates?” John guessed, holstering his guns and looking at Danse with a grim expression. “I ain’t stupid. I hear what people say.”

Danse swallowed his pills dry and sighed. “It seems that you and I continue to have very different opinions on what freedom means.”

“Meaning?”

He ran a hand along the shoulder strap of his rifle before responding. “I feel that the tone of Goodneighbor borders on anarchy. And I know that you’re better than that. You have the potential to do far more.”

“So, it’s not good enough for you?” John’s question had a derisive bite to it.

“John…” He lay a gentle hand on the ghoul’s elbow, attempting to use more than words to get his point across. “How many people die in your streets from alcohol and chem abuse? From fighting? How often?”

John gaze was cold, black ice. “They want to be there. They _want_ to do that.”

“Raiders do what they please, as well.”

“And here we are again,” John spat, recoiling. “You and your fucking standards.”

Danse’s shoulders sagged in defeat. Maybe this was as far as John could come, to stagger at the precipice of greatness only to concede. “How many children does Goodneighbor house? How many families? Is it getting any bigger? Any safer? Does it suit your needs or the needs of the Commonwealth? If the answers to these questions are _none_ and _no_ or you’re not sure, then you understand my concern.”

“If I changed things...?” John pressed, scanning the floor vacantly.

Danse ventured away to stuff fusion cells into an ammo pouch. “I couldn’t say.”

John fell silent. There was no further discussion on the subject. Thank God. John pushing him had never led to a positive place.

Longfellow led them up a winding mountain road in a row, him first with Danse close at hand, John and Valentine trailing behind, sharing cigarettes and bad jokes. Inland, the air was damp, and sat heavy and thick in Danse’s lungs. Deep crevices in the asphalt were wide enough to trip and cripple anyone not paying close enough attention, which was a difficult task in the island’s haze. On either side of the path they followed, trees stretched up to the heavens, shafts of light breaking through dense foliage to mingle with white vapor obscuring the road ahead. It was a palpable key difference between here and the Wasteland. The fog rolled in and out, sometimes thick as clouds, choking daylight, sometimes trailing away to nothing. Danse took another Rad-X.

He trudged closer to Longfellow, putting distance between him and the two at back. “I have to ask,” he began. “My… _associate_ was given a harsh reception. Why aren’t there any ghouls in Far Harbor? Normal ones, I mean. Not ferals. Do they have a settlement of their own, like the synths in Acadia?”

Longfellow had a choke-hold on his rifle. He grunted thoughtfully and said, “That there’s a sad tale to hear told. And I’m not nearly drunk enough to tell it.”

Opening his mouth to question him, Danse caught sight of a figure by the road and halted, throwing an arm out to stop Longfellow in his tracks. He crashed into Danse’s outstretched arm. “Careful, son. You’re gonna knock an old man down.”

Someone – a woman? – in tattered, dirty robes knelt in a shallow clearing between the roadside trees, rocking back and forth, hands above their head.

“Puh,” Longfellow spat as Danse lowered his arm. “Another rad-worshiping lunatic.” He brought his rifle up, leveling the barrel at her. He pulled the slide back on his gun with force, letting it click loudly into place.

At the sound, the being – it _was_ a woman – twisted her head around and lowered her hands. From under the patchiest head of hair Danse had seen from anything other than a ghoul, she grinned. Broken, rotted brown teeth parted as she stated in absolute confidence, “I am shielded by my faith. No harm can come to me.”

“No one’s looking to harm you,” came John’s gravelly voice, likely urged forward by the cocking of Longfellow’s gun.

Her head tilted slowly, dragging her sharp, wild eyes towards John. “One of Atom’s Forsaken. A most rare sight.”

“Yeah, I’m splendid,” John agreed. Turning to Longfellow, he commanded, “Put your damn gun down”. The old hunter grumbled something unintelligible but obeyed.

Boldly, she rose and approached John, circling him, her eyes bright and mad as she studied him, a hand hovering just over his chest. Danse wanted to shove her away. “Acadia is a nest of snakes. Should that be your destination, you will be led astray. You have already been touched by the Glow. Surrender. Give yourself to the Eternal Light and the will of Atom will set you free.”

John shrugged and edged away from her. “Yeah… not my bag. Thanks, though.”

She ogled John through sunken eyes, extending her hand. Danse instinctually tightened the grip on his own weapon. “Would you deny salvation? You straddle the ether between What Was and What Shall Be. You can avoid the inevitable. Only through the acceptance of His gifts can you be saved.”

“We’re wastin’ time,” Longfellow observed, heading off again. “Let’s move on.”

Eager to leave this encounter behind, Danse urged, “John, come on.” The ghoul continued to gawk at the woman, mesmerized. The woman stared at John as if she was starving and he was fresh, bloody meat. Dirty fingernails raked the air over his face, tracing, as if memorizing the fissures and divots. “ _John_.”

“Yeah,” John mumbled, breaking away. Once John had caught up, Danse fell back to take the rear guard. When he looked back, the woman was gone, swallowed up by the fog.

“Well, that was nice and cryptic and creepy,” Valentine commented as they resumed their journey. “They sure do grow ‘em crazy up here in the North.”

“Why’d you have to be a dick?” John questioned Longfellow. “She wasn’t bothering anyone.”

“You’ve got a hell of a lot to learn, newcomer. Zealots like that poison the Island. You’re either with them or you ain’t. And they don’t take kindly to nonbelievers.”

“Their God is… radiation?” Danse tried to recall as he stepped over sections of downed foliage, easing a bag of mirelurk jerky from his pack and fishing a piece out. He chewed, wondering if it was radiation that made the Children mad, or if they insane to begin with to adopt such ridiculous dogma. Nothing was more dangerous than blind faith in some ideology. Such notions warped motives and made decent people hardened and unreasonable. His mind flitted to the Brotherhood, and he almost choked.

“The Atom, to hear them tell it,” Longfellow grumbled, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “Buncha freaks, you ask me.”

“Hey, now. Watch your company, friend,” Valentine reprimanded. “That word isn’t well received.”

Longfellow grumbled again. “Are all mainlanders so high and mighty? Mind yourselves, or good luck finding your way around this hellpit alone.”

The three foreigners stopped talking to him. Valentine lit another cigarette on the go and Danse pulled up to John’s side. “Why did you speak to her?” Danse asked, extending the bag of jerky to him. The entire encounter had been eerie.   

“Maybe I’m just an ignorant asshole who thinks folks should do and worship whatever the hell they feel like,” John answered, obviously still angry with him. He pulled a jerky strip from the bag and tore at it savagely with his teeth. Danse hung back, giving him space, as if distance would heal their differences.

As they traveled further inland, a few wind turbines appeared beyond the trail, towering out of the mist, their blades churning sluggishly. Up ahead, the sky cleared, fog hanging back to hug the road. The bulbous steel dome of an observatory rose into view as the grade leveled and the tree line became scrubby. Bulwarks surrounded the building, which sported better defenses than Far Harbor. The wooden ramparts and support structures surrounding the facility reminded Danse of Knight Sterling’s – _Paladin_ Sterling’s – Minutemen settlements. Buses, cars, and other large objects were stacked along the insides of a barricade made useless by a wide-open gate. There was no one to be seen.

“Either someone is getting lazy or we’re expected,” Valentine observed, tipping his hat back with a metal thumb.

“They’ve already been watchin’ us for a good, long spell,” Longfellow confirmed. “Got eyes all around these parts.” He slapped Danse on the back. “I’m headin’ back down, Danny boy. Seek me out when you’re done here. We can have a drink and a good laugh about all this.”

Danse wasn’t too sure about either, but he nodded. “Thank you. You’ve offered us more than you needed to. I’ll keep you informed upon our return.”

With that, Longfellow tilted his weapon in acknowledgement, turned and vanished back into the fog. From this altitude, the island seemed enormous, treetops poking like spires through fog that extended as far as the eye could see. The entire world seemed to be shrouded in it.

“Piece of proverbial cake, right?” Valentine’s voice dripped with sarcasm as they climbed the stairs to the observatory. “In and out and home before dinner?” Nothing moved, no turrets, no guards. If they were being watched, it was by remote observation. Pulling the door open, Valentine ushered the others inside.  

Entering the building, Danse and John held hands over their guns. They made their way down a short corridor, a few sparse halogens casting ocher light to spill down the walls. Numerous rolls of the same sallow leather from the harbor sat in stacks in corners. The structure seemed almost oppressive, cloaked in mildew and dank from fog seeping in through holes in the dome above. Dozens of display screens, both rounded and angular, emitted sapphire glows from the central rotunda.

As they entered the pavilion, a figure rose, assisted by the push of an automatic chair. A lanky, bipedal creature turned to greet them, taking a few steps into the beams of light falling from the fragmented roof. Danse held his breath when he saw it. Additional drives and wiring had been fused into its body, snaking down its limbs in thick cords that looked like entrails. Electrodes adorned the back of its head and shoulders like the crown and mantle of some perverted king. The most nightmarish synth he had ever witnessed stood before them, raising an open palm and giving a calm smile.

“Salutations, Brother,” it said.


	7. DiMA

NICK

Acadia, ME

February 24th, 2288

Sometime over the last decade or so, when his warranty finally ran out, Nick’s joints had begun to erode beyond repair. His servos whirred a bit, and, on occasion, his gears grinded with sharp, cringeworthy sounds. But this facsimile, looking like a nightmare Wonderland version of himself, creaked with each step, chugged and droned with energy, dragging cables and appendages along the floor with high-pitch scratching sounds as it approached. The noise echoing all the way up to where a massive delipidated telescope hung, the wide eyepiece drooping mournfully towards the concrete floor. The synth’s eyes were dull and lifeless, retinas the same ashen color as the rest of its skin. The same color as Nick’s skin. It was like looking into a fun house mirror and having a warped version gaze back at him. “Synth-kind welcomes you, travelers,” it hailed. The conduits and cables disengaged, slithering away like departing snakes, leaving the being standing tall and proud and unassisted. “I am DiMA.”

Danse – in his standard mode of overreacting – had placed himself in front of John and Nick, rifle in hand. “What the hell are you?” John asked flatly, and Nick jammed an elbow into his ribs. If they came all this way just for John’s smart mouth to get them killed, well, that’d be a disappointment, though coming across an outlandish, dead-eyed Gen-2 synth plugged into a series of mainframes might make anyone forget their manners.

“It’s alright. I understand that my appearance can be a bit… unsettling.” The way it spoke – the way _he_ spoke – was relaxed and amiable, but without inflection. It was nigh impossible to gauge intent. Scars were depressed into the silicone on its dispassionate face. A unique Gen-2 prototype. Nick felt a nagging, juvenile sense of association at their likenesses. But surely there were plenty of Gen-2s, degrading in ditches all around the East Coast, that shared his time-beaten face. “I mean you no harm,” it said. “I try and greet all newcomers personally, as abandoning one’s entire life is… a bold step.”

“Some aren’t given that choice,” Danse growled, muscles bunched beneath his jacket, rifle held steady.

“That is true.” It wandered through a few shafts of light punching in from the broken dome as it talked. Daylight gleamed where it touched the metal fixtures imbedded in synthetic flesh. “Occasionally, revelations about one’s self can come at inopportune times.” It – DimA – looked at Danse, with a faint stirring of interest. It descended step by step from the dais at the observatory’s center with a fluid grace so smooth that it was unnerving. “Tell me – are you one of my lost children?”

The muzzle of Danse’s laser rifle wobbled.

“Ah. You are. Have no fear, friend. All are welcome here.”

Danse sucked air through his nose. “I’m no friend of yours,” he said over the hum of charged fusion cells. “Early model synths have simplistic, destructive programming. Why on Earth should we trust you?”

This was about to go very badly. Nick could tell. Bringing Danse might have been a mistake, his frayed nerves too raw to be bothered with reasoning, and when he snapped, John would be close to follow, backing him up. Nick spotted a figure dressed in black on a section of grated platform above. Someone on their knee with a sniper rifle trained on Danse. He strode forward and pressed the barrel of Danse’s rifle down. **“** Hey. How’s about you two step outside and leave the metalheads to talk?”

Danse spared a swift glace over his shoulder as John asked, “Nicky, you sure?”

“Five minutes. If I don’t come out and get’cha, you have my blessing to use force.”

That agreement seemed good enough for Danse. He backed up, keeping eyes on DiMA and his laser rifle at the ready. Nick imagined Danse would be pleased as spiked punch to see two Gen-2s eliminate each other. But they knew nothing of the rest of the facility. For all anyone knew, DiMA had an entire synth army at the ready, just waiting for him to give the command. On his way out, John brushed close and slipped something into the pocket of Nick’s trenchcoat. Nick’s metal fingers clicked over the object. A pinned grenade. _If you’ve gotta go, take ‘em with you_ , the gift meant. How cynical and extreme, just like John.

The door banged closed, the sound echoing down the hallway.

“Alright, enough pussyfooting around,” Nick announced, cutting through the small talk and misdirection. He shook a cigarette from its pack. “Kasumi Nakano. You got her stashed here or what?” he asked, flicking his lighter open. A small burst of flame glowed orange. The sudden brightness of it made his optics recalibrate and dim their sensors.

“Nick?” his copy asked in a reverent, soft tone, staring as the lighter’s flame extinguished. “It can’t be...” DiMA moved with a slow, controlled elegance, every shift of his body deliberate and careful. He floated more than walked until he loomed before Nick, as if that wasn’t creepy. The augmentations to his body rose from his mechanical skull and shoulders like the spines from some prehistoric relic, making him seem menacing and massive. His lifeless eyes scanned Nick’s yellow optics. “Do you… not remember me? We were prototypes together in the Institute… “ DiMA’s face took on a pained expression, as if struggling to remember. “Forgive me. I’m… unable to recall your original designation. As well as my own. DiMA isn’t, of course, my Institute-given identity.”

Literal alarm bells went off in Nick’s central circuitry; he muted them. Nick’s time at the Institute remained the biggest void in his past. His cogs were rattled that some synth on an island in the middle of nowhere would even presume to recognize him, let alone know his name. “Look at me. I must be famous,” he quipped, playing along and puffing on his smoke. “Keep talking…”

In an oddly human fashion, DiMA busied himself with his hands, pressing fingertips together in a steeple. That dull gaze took on a blank stare. “I was allowed to grow, to evolve in my own way. But you… you were meant to house a fully integrated personality. I... I was there for you every time that they failed. Every time that you woke up not knowing where you were, it was I who tended to you.” He seemed downtrodden as he spoke, making small, sad gestures with graceful hands. “You and I…we escaped together. We are, for lack of a better description, brothers.”

Getting junked from the same assembly line didn’t make them related. Could be a ploy to lure Nick to wherever this DiMA was hiding the other synths. Flipping through every memory he had, Nick searched for any glimmer of an allusion to DiMA. Nothing. Not surprising. “That’s the biggest load of boloney I’ve ever heard,” he said and shook his cigarette at DiMA. Flecks of ash flitted to the ground. “Look – we know you’ve been enticing synths to come here, so where are they? The bigotry in Far Harbor’s a hell of a tangible thing, and I wouldn’t blame ya for  –”

With slender palms raised, DiMA interrupted. “We only seek to exist without interference. Those who come to us know that we offer true freedom. No lies, no false memories.” DiMA inclined his head. “I offer haven. The island is an unkind place. Venturing out into the fog and encountering what inhabits it – the experience can be quite trying.”

“Pretty trying for those who ain’t synths, as well,” Nick noted, recalling the harbormen dying at the gate to Far Harbor. “And being a synth doesn’t automatically make you good people,” he scoffed at his twin. “Last time being polite – where’s Kasumi?”

“I assure you, no harm has come to my dear Kasumi,” said DiMA. “Forgive my suspicions. I must protect my people. Our people.” His dull eyes widened, something like hope playing behind his features. “Will you hear our story? Of Acadia, of course, but also… you and I? Listen, and I will explain everything.”

Nick’s plastic lungs deflated. It wasn’t as if he had a grab bag of choices. “Let me speak with my trigger-happy partners before they do something irreparably dumb.” He turned, flicked the filter of his cigarette away, and stalked down the hall and out the front door. He found the sun setting, and a rapid twilight chasing color from the sky. The fog was thick as ever, crawling along the road ahead and creeping towards them, almost intent on swallowing them. Danse stood by the door with his back straight, still gripping his rifle. There was a cigarette dangling from John’s mouth, but both pistols filled his hands.

“Good,” John grumbled around his smoke. “You had forty seconds left. Was he on the level?”

“Got confirmation that’s she in here,” divulged Nick. “But I just… I need a second to think.” Out of all the lives that he had led, both as Nick Valentine, pre-war gumshoe, and Nick Valentine, synth detective, little had shocked him. He was well versed in the depths of depravity that humans could go to and his casework didn’t do much to offend him. But uncertainty about his own existence… He had long since stopped chasing demons from his past. After it had become abundantly clear that he would find neither answers nor closure to his history, he had put it aside entirely. If he spent his days in turmoil about his own creation, he might as well end up like Danse, paralyzed to move forward, trapped in a deep pit of self-doubt and distrust.

It was almost worse to think of DiMA telling the truth. That someone had been with him through some harrowing escape and he had forgotten all about it. The Nakano case was kicking up all kinds of old dirt. Nick was underprepared and out of his element. “Hate to admit it, but maybe John was right. This looks like a job for the Railroad.”

Silently, John punched the air in victory.

“Best plans is to roll on back to Far Harbor,” Nick continued. “Try reaching Radio Freedom and their General. Our boy in blue’ll light a candle or a lantern or whatever it is the Railroad does and make a connection for us.”

Danse gave a curt nod. “Then let’s move out. Standing here in this fog is careless.” He and John started back down the trail.

Nick gazed out over the island but, stuck in his own head, saw none of it. All the pirouetting that DiMA had done around the subject of where the Acadian synths might have been located left him unnerved. The island was shaping up to be more sinister than it had seemed, and not just on behalf of DiMA. The reception at Far Harbor had been equally off-putting. And where were the ghouls? Everyone appeared to speak in half-truths, omitting the majority of facts in lieu of self-preservation. He’d find the truth soon enough. This long-lost _brother_ was waiting for him.

Turning in the fog, haze up to his chest, Danse called, “Valentine?”

“I’ll catch up. I need answers.” DiMA talked of a shared history and longing was evident in the way he spoke to Nick. If he was going to get anyone on this godforsaken island to speak candidly, it might just be his clone. “When I find the girl, I’ll bring her straight down to you.”

“Then remain vigilant,” Danse advised as John gave a solemn nod. “And keep that… _abomination_ at arm’s length.” The two of them faded into the fog.

Nick scuffed the toe of his shoe into the cracked asphalt surrounding the observatory. For once, he agreed with Danse’s choice of wording. DiMA certainly did look horror-inducing. Time had been unkind to him, to them both. Out of all the settlements in all the world, Kasumi had to walk into this one. “What’s one more bad idea?” he pondered, heading back into Acadia.

Coming down the hallway, he found DiMA engaged in quiet conversation with a nebbish-looking man in a lab coat. Another synth? DiMA’s minder?

His copy lurched to attention as Nick entered the dome. “Alright,” said Nick. “You’ve got a captive audience. Spill.”


	8. Shut Up and Pitch

JOHN

The Island, ME

February 24th, 2288

John laced his fingers behind his head, drinking deep of the island’s vapor. The road down the mountain was lit only by moonlight, nocturnal flora and pockets of luminescent radiation. The radioactive fog kept him warm while Danse shivered in a chill that hugged the mountainside. The mist made John feel like he was plugged into a battery, live currents shooting down his limbs and crackling within his skull. Rather than pain, he felt as if we were on too much Psycho and caffeine, making his muscles twitch and his brain fire rapidly. It was like being caught that pre-orgasmic moment of ecstasy forever. Pleasurable as that was, Danse’s sideways looks were beginning to wear on him.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Danse asked for the seventh time. He looked tired, emotions having run a full gamut today.

“Never fuckin’ better.” As they picked their way over a fallen tree, the fog rolled over them. John shuddered as he soaked it up, his whole body quaking. He hopped up and down like a boxer juicing up to enter the ring, hands jiggling at his sides. “You should feel it, Dan. Goddamn amazing,” he said, grinning like a madman. “The island…it…it throbs.” He shook a hand in front of his chest for emphasis.

“I can only pray that I won’t need your assistance any time soon,” Danse grimly supplied.

 _Killjoy._ Of course humans – or synths – wouldn’t be able to appreciate this. John supposed that he looked like an agitated junkie, high on a chem cocktail. The fog felt incredible. Word got out about this place and he could kiss all the ghoul residents from Goodneighbor goodbye.

They hit a patch of trail where the fog cleared, and John’s euphoria ended abruptly. “Damn.” Head clearing, he recalled his previous thought about his citizens and remarked, “No ghouls here. Not a one. Ya catch that?”

Danse nodded, skimming the trees. “I’d noticed.” He halted in the road, and John stopped with him. “Have you seen the pelts?” he asked, nose wrinkling as if he’d had an unsettling thought.

“What?” John frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Longfellow mentioned something happening to the ghouls on the island. And I’ve been noticing things…” He ran thoughtful fingers over his rifle. “There are plenty of skins all over the island, both in Far Harbor and Acadia. The harbormen. They all wore a leather of the same tone and texture… I’d wondered…Do you think…?”

The shiver that ran through John was nowhere as pleasant as the one caused by the fog. “Are you sayin’...fuckin’ _ghoulskin_?”

“Yes.”

What Danse was insinuating was horrifying on a level that John almost couldn’t comprehend. His heart lodged in his throat and, for a few moments, couldn’t breathe. With the thick cover of fog gone, the chill of the night began to eat at him. He must have looked as bad as he felt, for Danse grabbed at his arm to steady him. “Tryin’ to think of something worse than this,” John forced out. He paused, and then shook his head. “Nope. Can’t.”

The ghouls of Far Harbor. Folks that survived the bombs and remembered clear skies, green leaves, and a time when the island had a different name. _What the hell? What the goddamned hell had happened here?_

He opened his mouth to shout this when a hail of gunfire cut across the road, dinging the asphalt. Danse grabbed John by the back of his jacket and hauled him off the path. They both hit dirt by the side of the road and scrabbled down the embankment, bullets flying overhead.  Something long and metal thunked deeply against a nearby tree. A harpoon quivered where it was imbedded in the bark. “Seriously?” John blurted, pulling himself along with his elbows.

“Quiet,” Danse warned, pushing himself up into a crouch. He took hold of John’s wrist. “Stay close.” Sticking side by side, they ran through the undergrowth, ducking under trees and scrambling over boulders, snapping twigs as they fled. No good. Men were shouting now, voices drawing ever nearer, giving orders to split up and cut them off.

Danse veered to one side, driving John onto a small fishing boat, grounded in the middle of nowhere without a single body of water in sight. They pressed against the narrow shelter of the cockpit, lingering in silence as their pursuers ran past. Danse’s tight hold on his wrist was being to steal into a painful realm. “Gonna need that arm back.” Danse released him. They hunkered side-by-side beneath a blow-out window, absolutely still, holding their breaths and straining to hear movement out in the forest.

Men crashed through the undergrowth, crushing plants and kicking over stones. “What’d you find?” one of them asked.

“One of the fresh ones,” was the reply. “All that pumpin’ blood’ll lube the knives really good. Skin’ll slide off easier than with those withered rotters.”

Fighting rising bile, John trembled. He actually shook and was ashamed of it. Fuck. He hoped Danse couldn’t feel the vibration.

Danse nudged him. _Trappers?_ he mouthed. In the darkened, cramped quarters of the cockpit, his expression was veiled.

Shrugging, John shook his head. _Maybe?_

“Where’d they go?”

“You check the boat?”

“Shit,” Danse hissed in a rare curse. He gave John a lengthy look and filled his lungs. “John, listen,” he whispered, steel authority in his voice. “I’ll lead them off. You head back to Acadia.”

Before John could protest, Danse sprang from the cockpit and leapt over the side of the boat, firing warning shots into the air in bolts of red light. In that instant of confusion, John slid across the deck and over the opposite side. Danse was out of sight, vanished back into the fog cover and hidden by rocky outcroppings, twisting foliage and shitty, inconsistent moonlight.

“Ain’t gotta be like this, friend,” one of the men shouted at the tree line. “We just want the rotter.”

“Shut up!” a second voice argued. “Did you see that guy? Plenty of meat on that one. A good catch. Don’t use the shotguns on ‘im. Too many pellets to pick out.”

Sure sounded like trappers, crazy men living in the fog, apparently cannibals. This island was a cracked piñata filled with crappy prizes. John eased around the hull until he saw them, all stout men in heavy wide-shouldered coats. Eight, or possibly a dozen, flanked one side of the boat.

From the forest, Danse let loose a series of laser blasts, red streaks setting a few bone-dry trees ablaze. Flames licked their way along overhead branches, and the trappers scrambled back. One waved to the ridge above. “Get down here,” he shouted. “Pinch this guy off!”

John jerked his head up. The outlines of another dozen-plus trappers disappeared from the crest, all making their way down to join the search for Danse. Rough odds, even for a former paladin. John’s breaths turned shallow. He had done nothing when Mallory was killed, nothing when he had lost Garrett or West, nothing for Eliza or for Parker, as he lay dying in the streets of Goodneighbor.

For Danse, he threw himself from concealment, firing rounds as fast as he could load them in arcs of bullets and plasma. He threw himself into a run and took off down a levee opposite of Danse’s direction, kicking up rocks and dead plants, stones clattering in his wake, as warning shots grew loud in his ears. He took a turn so sharp that he lost his footing, sending him into a roll down the remainder of the grade. For a few instants, all he could see were alternating flashes of night sky and white fog as he tumbled, sure to keep a hold on his weapons. He landed gruffly at the bottom of the embankment, slightly battered, a wash of warm radiation flowing over him. It was different than the fog, more intense. Pushing up, he clambered to his feet and sprinted as hard as he could. John’s emaciated body wasn’t built for athletics. It felt as if acid had made its way into his veins instead of rushing blood, and his lungs were fit to burst. The rads in the air kept him going. He stole a quick glance over his shoulder – sure enough, most of the posse had abandoned Danse to pursue him.

Drawing them further, he charged through the fog and into a tepid lake containing hard fallout, several striped barrels floating in clusters along the surface. The water was a deep shade of goldenrod with tendrils of acrid vapor rising out of it. The water was waist-deep, and as John sloshed through, intense radiation prickled at his legs. He didn’t know where he was going, just putting as much distance between the pursuing trappers and Danse as possible. None of the trappers followed him directly into the lake, but they continued to run alongside of it, sending bullets flying, the water spraying upwards in small bursts as they struck too close. There was no cover. A bullet struck his pipe pistol. It exploded into a dozen pieces, the combustion scorching his hand.

Through the mist, John spotted a few lights up ahead; candles, glowing bottles held aloft by long poles, and bioluminescent flora. Pennants were strung nearby, sporting blobby-looking sunbursts of white paint on charcoal backdrops. Slogging through the bog, he changed direction, heading for the remnants of an old dock. Heaving himself out of the irradiated swamp and onto reasonably dry land, he flung himself into a frantic race over earthen terrain. The fog-choked sky betrayed him, and in the darkness he toppled over the bones of some long-dead creature and tumbled to the ground, the impact sending his plasma pistol sliding down a dirt path and out of reach.

There was only an instant to fret before two trappers flew at him from the sides and seized his jacket at the wrists. Another struck an instant later, grabbing him around the knees. Together, they easily lifted the ghoul off the ground. John felt a lurch as they started to drag him off the path into the dense growth of tree and brush. He had never been truly in fear of losing his life before. It wasn’t his death that frightened him, but rather knowing what his foes had in store for him beforehand. He had no doubt that these men would end his life tonight, separating his skin from his body whether he still breathed or not.

Terror soared, making his heart pound and his head light. His lithe body twisted in the air in what he knew was a vain struggle to free himself. He managed a lucky kick at the trapper holding his legs, nailing him in the knee. The man staggered backwards, losing his hold on John and landing on his backside, allowing for John’s feet to thud to the ground. He battled to use his weight to wrench himself loose from the trappers that held his arms, but their wicked smiles only broadened. They laughed, tightened their grip on his wrists and yanked him along the trail. John fought back best as he could. Resisting any kind of compliance, he refused to even walk – an act which had back-fired when the trappers continued to easily drag his light weight over the withered landscape. Several more men splashed into the marsh, hands reaching out for him.

The ground itself quaked and the trappers drew to a stop. A vague bellow emanated from the lake, growing louder as the water’s surface seemed to bulge upwards. Something massive arose from the lake, water and radioactive sludge cascading off a segmented exoskeleton as it ascended, towering far above the scrubby lakeside trees.

“Crawler!” a trapper alerted, fear clearly rooted in his shriek.  

When the thing’s wedge-shaped head swiveled in their direction, John was almost entirely forgotten. With surprising agility, the crawler scampered over the shoals, giving a sinister screech. It landed amongst the cluster of trappers, jarring the earth. Only the two trappers still holding John seemed to remember him; they hit the dirt with him trapped between them. Above, the crawler teared trappers apart in showers of gore and entrails, stabbing at them with sharp pereiopods and a head that tapered to a point. Its many legs skittered over the ground, each hitting the earth with enough force to pulverize anything caught underneath.

A few feet away, the plasma pistol sat in the muck, emitting a faint green gleam. Planting his knees, John gritted his teeth, arched his back and ducked his head, yanking his thin body out of his leather jacket, freeing himself, leaving the trappers to clutch at the empty sleeves. He fell backwards with a plop, mud spattering his white tee, and dove for his gun. One of the trappers grabbed his water-logged flag sash and pulled him off his feet. They both fought for the pistol before the trapper snatched it away. John rocked to one side, pulling a knife from his boot. The second trapper struck him, and his knife went spinning into the muck. The crawler roared above, its huge body spinning, legs churning up damp earth as it searched for the remaining trappers. Defenseless, John dove into a roll and chanced tumbling beneath he creature. He emerged unharmed and leapt to his feet, dashing inland.

A blast of chartreuse energy struck John in the side of his face, causing him to cry out in surprise. The force of the strike spun him off course and he staggered to a stop, ducking and rolling under the safety of an uprooted stump. For a split second, his nerves stood on end. From out of one eye the world shimmered and pulsed, the terrain altering, turning smoky and diffused before solidifying again. Gingerly, he ran fingers over his face. Drawing the hand back, his palm seemed to glow for a moment before returning to normal. It wasn’t plasma – his head would be ash. Was it… gamma? He whipped around.

A fleet of Children of Atom descended on the bog crawling down a ridge from both sides in long tattered robes. “Preserve the Spring!” he heard them cry. A barrage of yellow-green gamma bursts was unleashed on both the crawler and the trappers. The surviving trappers fired back. It was hell and chaos; no wonder John had been struck. Bullets, harpoons and gamma blasts flew in all directions as the crawler roared. This had to be the single strangest battle John had ever been a part of. The zealots fired wide, trying to pick off the trappers while talking down the crawler.  

He had to dive out of hiding when the crawler’s fin slammed into his stump, obliterating it in an explosion of splinters. His brief reprieve seemed to be over as one of the trappers who had restrained him sprung up to fire at him. John dodged and, still caught in the crossfire, he was hit again by a gamma shot, this time in the shoulder. He’d never been so thankful to have been a ghoul, as the radiation would have cooked him otherwise. In a moment of fight or flight, adrenaline surged and he felt the rads burning through him. A light green glow slid down his bare arm, collecting in his palm, ending in an accumulation of jade smoke that rose from the tips of his fingers. As the trapper prepared to fire again, he did what came naturally to him. John had been a man from Diamond City; he compressed the energy in his hand, squeezing it into a mass. He wound up and pitched, the ball of rads arcing from an overhand throw.

The sphere struck the trapper in the face, and he clutched at his eyes, screaming as concentrated radiation ate through his skin. The second trapper, the one that had taken John’s pistol, saw this and ran.

John froze, astounded, terrified, hand still raised. He turned giddy with amazement at what he’d just done. Do it again. He had to do it again.

It occurred to him that his circumstances – being a ghoul on the cusp of feral, soaking up rads like a dry sponge – didn’t have to be a curse. Reavers from the Capital hurled deadly radioactive gore much in the same way. What if this was just another part of his evolution? It would be a shame to waste it. And it sure was fucking cool.

As the crawler galloped in and out of the fog, causing mayhem, John ran into the tumult, straight into the path of the gamma rays, drawing somewhat friendly fire. Concussive gamma blasts knocked into him, rocking his body. Radiation channeled down his arms with the pull of gravity. This time, he tossed two balls in a row, one from each hand. The small, neon orbs felled two different trappers, hitting them in the chests and sending them sprawling into a pond surrounded by sacred-seeming candlelight. He laughed, amazed, hands outstretched, watching the bodies of his attackers bob in glowing water.

Behind him, the crawler gave a pitiful cry. He turned in time to watch it wilt towards him. Its heavy body colliding into him with such force that it knocked him backwards into the pond. The beast landed on top of him, pinning him down under murky water. Encased in the radioactive spring, he panicked, struggling against the mass of the dying monster submerging him, fighting to reach air.

 _You’ll drown,_ Mama Murphy’s warning rang clear as dark spots began to consume his vision. He had come all the way to Maine just to screw Danse once before being drowned in a pond, crushed by a swamp monster. How humiliating.


	9. Variations on the Same Tune

DANSE

Chesapeake Bay, MD

June 24th, 2279

 _Invictus_ ’ shadow skipped over open water, a miniscule blob upon the sparkling surface of Chesapeake Bay. Seated in the galley, Danse held his helmet held under one arm, letting crisp air and sunlight caress his face. The steady thumping of the vertibird’s propellers were working hard to lull Danse into a trance and shook his head to clear it.

Beneath his armor and stoic expression, he was a wreck. Danse’s leave had come and went, spending it without Calmex or company, wandering the Washington Mall alone, slaughtering lesser creatures not worth mentioning in reports. John had not responded to his previous three messages and had considered sending a forth but refrained. Danse had gone about their final conversation all wrong. Perhaps he could have tried harder, found a compromise or a white lie. Now, whatever they had, appeared to be over. John was personable and handsome. Surely… surely he would have other suitors by now. Scalding jealously made Danse’s ears burn.

“Fifteen-hundred meters out,” the lancer announced over the cockpit speakers.

Danse put his sentiments aside. Getting lost in his head during a mission was a solid way to get killed. He slid one metal-sheathed hand through an overhead rung and leaned out, the knight sitting opposite of him doing the same. The rush of wind made his hood feel cold against his scalp, the roar of air deafening. Out in the middle of the bay, thick charcoal smoke spilled from a listing oil tanker, burning from somewhere within the hold. A thinner plume of crimson smoke emitted from the stern, although no Brotherhood units could be spotted on deck. Two other ‘birds, _Sparta_ and _The Chancellor,_ approached from the opposite side. Off in the distance, the outlines of three other vertibirds circled. Looking through a scope, Danse saw a sloppily drawn skull on each of the hulls. Suspicious.

“Try those ‘birds again,” he told Lancer Angeles. Few knew how to pilot a vertibird. Even fewer had access to them.

“No response to hails,” she informed from the cockpit.

 _Invictus_ flew a loop around the tanker, drawing nearer to where the signal grenade belched for help. Brotherhood patrols were scattered along the coast from the Carolinas to New Jersey. Despite their training and the decades since the Brotherhood had taken root in the East, units would occasionally find themselves in situations too dire to escape from unassisted, either from enemies or exposure to the harsh Wasteland environment. When word had come of a team in peril, Danse had been one of the first to volunteer manning an extraction. “Where’s the unit?” he asked.

“Visuals impaired. I can’t see anything under this smoke. On deck or inside?” the lancer guessed. She sounded unsure of either. “Sir, I can’t land.”

“Yes, Angeles. I see that.” Danse donned his helmet with his free hand. “Knight Yonomori,” he said, clicking the helmet into place. “Give us a way in.”

“Yes, Sir,” the knight’s helmet nodded, and he stood, grabbing a hook from the bulkhead behind them. He flipped a release lever and stamped to the opposite edge of the ‘bird with the hook in his hand, pulling on the winch.

“Steady,” Danse called into the cockpit as _Invictus_ settled into a hover over a patch of clean air and clear views. He gave the knight a thumbs up. 

The knight stepped from the vertibird and fell out of sight, the cable unraveling from its spool, metal hissing against the cabin floor as it scraped by. The blades continued to beat a steady tune. Danse counting his breaths. _Ten. Fifteen. Twenty._

“Secured,” the knight replied via headset, and Danse reset the lever. “Ready for your command.”

His tightened his grasp on the overhead grip. “Pull it,” Danse instructed the lancer. The vertibird gave a stomach-tossing jerk, banking in the other direction and soaring in elevation. The hatch to a hold went flying off into the bay, yanked free by the ‘bird. “Give me all channels,” Danse ordered Field Scribe Klatt-Faust, who clutched onto his seat in the cockpit despite the two straps restraining him. Although green in the face, the scribe threw himself forward, punching buttons and spinning dials. Raising his hand, the scribe gave the signal to go. “All units, this is Paladin Danse aboard _Invictus_ ,” he said into his headset as Angeles swung her ‘bird back over the freighter, lowering to drop altitude. “We’ve secured a way in. Looks like we’re going to have to clear the ship in order to locate the patrol in distress. Armored knights only. Prepare for live flames. Heading down now. Over.” Replies of ‘ _roger_ ’ came from the other vertibirds.

Danse took a confident stride out into the open air above the ship and plummeted straight down. The rush of freefall ended with an abrupt jar that rattled his teeth. The deck bent and rippled upon his landing. There were additional bangs as three more knights joined him on deck. Knight Yonomori crouched by the open hold. “Looks like a grade A shitstorm in there, Sir.”

Danse acknowledged him with a gesture as he approached. “Let’s get our people out.” He pulled his laser rifle and hopped into the hold, knowing that the knights would follow his lead. Landing on a metal shipping container, he was greeted by choking black smoke and swirling embers. The hull creaked as he and the others dropped to a lower level and ventured deeper into the tanker. Screams began to emerge from the smoke, and flashes of gunfire popped in the haze.

Within the tilted insides of the ship, a battle between local raiders and Gunners raged. New to the East, the Gunners were a highly-militarized faction formed from NCR defectors and equally jaded soldiers from further west. They had better resources and training then raiders but lacked equal numbers. Both types were leeches, draining resources from makeshift settlements such as this. A number of shanties were perched amidst shipping containers and stacked barrels, the citizens fleeing the battle to group in clusters at the highest elevation possible. A few strung out chemheads caught in the center fired in return, although the accuracy of their aim was far inferior. Various banners hung high in the hold proclaiming marketplace offerings were now riddled with holes or aflame. Bullets had knocked holes into oil barrels and laser weapons were setting the spilling petroleum ablaze. The hull was damaged, allowing seawater to flood the lower compartments. What had been a floating settlement was now a steel coffin waiting to be filled.

“Well,” a knight from one of the other ‘birds began. “At least we’re up against people.” 

Danse took small comfort in that. There was little sport in killing humans. Something exploded in a cloud of flame and the air flow shifted. Flames leapt to fully engulf him and the knights. Watching the orange blaze lick across his visor, he put faith in his armor’s coating as the fireball passed. A collection of bullets clanged against his plating in hollow thumps. He bit the inside of his cheek in annoyance. “Stick to the Doctrine. Clear the ship of civilians. And find that patrol.”

“Roger that,” Lancer Angeles said through the speakers. “We’ll have scribes standing by at an extraction point.”

He and the four knights paraded into a maelstrom of bullets, plasma, and energy firing from all directions. Red beams of Brotherhood laser weapons cut the aggressors down and the five of them made short work of the troublemakers. Signaling, he had the knights spilt up, one group guiding civilians up top for the ‘birds to take to shore, the other two with him, poking into deeper levels, searching for the lost unit. The process took hours, the water level rising and the hold becoming darker with smoke all the while. When smoke began clogging the filters on his power armor, Danse had to make a call. “Anything?” he asked over his headset to anyone who might be listening.

“No, Sir. Civilians have been excised, but there’s no sign of our men,” came the disheartening answer from one of the knights. The others echoed variations on the same tune.

“Take yourselves topside. I’m wrapping this up.”

“Sir.” Yonomori’s voice was low, as if there was a way to make a conversation private over an open airwave. “We can keep going. The air reserves in our suits give us at least ten more minutes.”

“And no time to get back up once they’re depleted,” Danse reminded. With a heavy heart, he said, “This is my call. Search is off.” How cruelly unfair that his brethren couldn’t even be located, leaving their bodies to sink in the bay.

Getting out of the hold was more difficult than getting in, their heavy metal suits weighing them down. Hooks were lowered again and, one by one, Danse and the knights were winched back up to the ‘birds. They reconvened at a small seaport village by the coastline. Once the vertibirds had all landed, the scribes were able to take stock. The rescued civilians had been relocated to this seaside location and they now resided in hastily erected medical tents and in familial groups around cooking fires, tended to and questioned by the scribes.

Danse and Yonomori were sitting on a length of driftwood, scrubbing soot from their visors with cloth and Abraxo when Field Scribe Klatt-Faust appeared, knocking on the back of Danse’s armor to get his attention. His long face was dour, and his lips pursed. “Families and bystanders are all accounted for. Bodies are just raiders, Gunners, and junkies. One of the local fauna got his hands on a signal grenade. The whole thing was a false alarm.”

A warring sense of relief and anger swelled in Danse’s chest, and his mouth hung open in an undignified manner. All this over nothing. He’d been mourning Brothers and Sisters that had never existed. His jaw slammed shut, and he stood. “How many casualties?” he asked.

“On our side? None. Eighty survivors pulled from the freighter, though.”

“Eighty-three,” a second scribe added from nearby. “A damn miracle is what this was.”

Klatt-Faust grunted. “Making a home on that freighter might have been innovative in theory, but once raiders and Gunners arrived and sunk their boats, there was no way off. Good for raiders, having a secure location, but I expected more from ex-militia.”

“Seems like poor planning on behalf of those Gunners,” Yonomori scoffed, “leaving themselves stranded.” He rolled his eyes. “Wastelanders. Ugh.”

“The other ‘birds,” said Danse. The others just stared at him. “The ones we couldn’t raise on the com system. I fear we may not be alone in the skies anymore.” My God. Did the Brotherhood have dogfights in their future? This could completely overhaul lancer training. “You said this whole thing was a ruse, caused by a single person?” he questioned Klatt-Faust.  

“Indeed. That brave idiot is being held in the far-most medical tent for questioning.”

Suppressing the urge to shout in frustration, Danse simply nodded. Treachery had drawn them there, putting his team and two other squadrons at risk, drawing them into a literal firefight they’d been unprepared for. Donning his damaged helmet, he stomped his way past the survivors, footfalls landing with more force than necessary, making more than a few civilians scramble away. Good. He wanted to look as righteously furious as possible. When he arrived, he knocked the tent flap out of his way and ducked his head to fit his oversized armor inside.

The interior was dim, sunlight filtering in through the seams in the tent in narrow shafts. On a cot to one side, lay a young woman in Gunner armor. Burns had licked up her face and claimed most of the hair on the side of her scalp. Short ginger hair covered the other side. He couldn’t tell if she was asleep or unconscious. Calmly seated beside her in a metal folding chair was John.

Danse was a metal statue, locked in place as he gawked. John, here? That didn’t make any sense. But here he sat, boots up on the Gunner’s gurney, fingers steepled under his chin, bloodied hair curling lightly at his shoulders. His beautiful face had been split open on one side in an arc from forehead to cheek. Despite his shock, seeing John hurt made Danse angry. He strode forward to clasp John’s face in an enlarged metal hand, angling it up to inspect the injury. “It was you,” Danse murmured. “Of course, it was you.”

John answered in stony silence, hazel eyes hard and unblinking. A few of the scribes could be heard chatting outside, their words indistinct through the canvas. 

He knew why John had triggered the signal grenade – his own, given to John in a moment of apparent insanity. Once it was activated, the Brotherhood would have to respond, would have to interfere in a battle where they had no stakes. John forced their hand and saved eighty-three individuals. Danse had dared him to take a stand and he had. “You tricked a Brotherhood battalion into fighting someone else’s battle. You could have gotten my Brothers or Sisters killed,” he scolded through the speakers of his helmet. “How dare you.”

John pulled his face from his grasp, glaring up at him as if Danse were a dangerous stranger. “If you’re gonna put a bullet in my head, get it over with,” he snarled.

For a moment, that response confused Danse. Of course. John had never seen him in his armor. Lifting his hands, Danse pulled his helmet off. Both watched the other and exchanged no words. If John had been expecting someone else, his eyes didn’t betray it. Danse turned his helmet over in his hands. Beyond the tent flap, footsteps faded, voices quieting.

“Was all this to get my attention?” Danse asked, keeping his voice low. “Why else would you be in Columbia?” John chewed his lip and his brows met, but he remained mute. “Maybe you didn’t expect me, but you certainly expected a Brotherhood team to come, and I would have heard about it. Those civilians… you heard about the oncoming attack somewhere didn’t you? In some chem den or back alley. And you had us pull them out. You had us handle it because you couldn’t do it alone.”

Still, John said nothing. He wore his anger very plainly on his face. Danse understood why. Yes, he had been abrupt with him the last time they had met. Yes, he had given him an unfair challenge. Yes, he had acted in a manner not befitting an adult in a relationship with someone that he cared about. Yes, he knew that his actions had left John hateful and hurting. A sick feeling crept through Danse’s gut. “John… please… talk to me.”

His fingers remained pressed together, hazel eyes clouded with fury, punishing Danse with silence.

A wave of emotion crashed over Danse, a tangible ache that crept from his stomach and into his chest. This was his John. No one looked at Danse that way John did, with daring eyes and a smile that radiated sunshine. No one ever. Not even Cutler. The shared glances between the two soldiers had been sly and appreciative, never openly enamored the way he and John managed. He felt as if he was faced with never seeing that expression again. John, who made him forget how to breathe. John, who was nothing like Cutler, ease and comradery versus passion and exhilaration. The continued comparison was unfair. He realized that even in the middle of a crowded room, he’d still be lonely without John. Danse had done them both a disservice by smothering the truth, that being in love with John hurts. It was too much, and Danse was unable to handle the sheer volume of it. So, he’d done what was safe, safe for both of them. He buried it.

Unable to bear this weight any longer, Danse’s words gushed out. “I do love you. God… John, I do. But I can’t say it freely. Not yet. I’m sorry that it hurts you, but that admission endangers me, endangers you. The cost is too high. I’m fearful of retaliation should we be discovered. I... I can’t bear the thought of making a mark of you. Of bringing hatred down upon both of us. So, you will have to forgive me. _Please_ ,” he sank to a knee, still towering over John in his chair. “You must forgive me. I have two parallel lives that cannot cross. They _cannot_ intersect. Each destroys the other. I need them to remain separate and I need you to remain safe. Forgive me for not being able to love you in the way that you deserve it or even in the way that I want to. You mean too much to me. I’ve already lost someone that I cared for.” He swallowed, pain constricting his throat. “Losing you… I don’t know how I could live through that.”

The crease between John’s eyes vanished. He leaned forward, snagging Danse by the handles on the torso of his armor. Tilting him downwards, John stretched his neck to firmly kiss him on the mouth. The tension between them drained. Danse wanted to grab him, to take him in his arms, but his armor could not allow that type of closeness.

 John released his suit and their lips parted with a soft, wet sound. Danse stood and rotated the helmet in his hands once more. “You and I… are we alright?” he asked, fearful of the answer.

Settling back in his chair, John gave that bright, sly smile. “See you next furlough.”

Because he couldn’t touch him – his body wrapped in metal – Danse sank to a knee and pressed his hooded forehead to John’s.

After exiting the tent, Danse secured his helmet once more. This would be easier if no one could look him in the eye. He waved Klatt-Faust down, and the man rushed to meet him. “Sir?” the scribe asked. “Have you decided on a course of action?” He jerked a thumb at the medical tent Danse had just departed.

“Once were done here, we’ll head back to the Citadel,” was the command that Danse gave.

“What ramifications are you suggesting for the offender?”

“None.”

“Sir?” the scribe asked again, dumbfounded. It was not common to let wrongdoings against the Brotherhood go unpunished. Were another officer in Danse’s place, John would be sent before a Circle of Steel tribunal, undoubtedly found guilty of gross interference, and executed. Danse was no Wordsworth, but he could spin this story in the direction he wanted. If pushed to explain his decision, Sarah would understand. Today was a victory for Brotherhood public relations. She comprehended the morale of the Capital in its entirety, not just for the Brotherhood.

“We took no casualties,” Danse reminded the scribe.

“Sir, our armor and ‘birds took damage –”

“ _We took no casualties_ ,” Danse reiterated. “And in the end, it was all for the best. We followed the Doctrine and that will make Sarah – I mean, Elder Lyons pleased. The offender won’t try something like that again. Tend to the wound on his face and then release him. That’s an order from your Paladin.”


	10. Pious Aims

NICK

Acadia, ME

February 24th, 2288

Slashes of night sky could be seen through the crumbling top of the dome. The faint sparkle of far-away stars made Nick feel small and, to be honest, obsolete. He briefly wondered what it would be like to gaze at them through the ample telescope overhead, but the lens was probably as fractured as the world around him. There was something painfully ironic about two synths being enclosed in a station meant for detecting otherworldly bodies.

“I didn’t want to believe you,” Nick began, “about being brothers.” He wasn’t used to feeling ashamed. Or confused. But he stood before a synth more damaged than he was, unsure of what his next course of action should be. He’d actively stopped looking for answers to his clouded past long ago, but now someone held the key, presenting it with the promise of family. Hesitant to react imprudently, Nick tugged the brim of his hat down, shielding his eyes with shadows. “I’m… sorry for the way I acted.”

“I’m sure that my account came as quite the shock.” DiMA’s voice was soft and gentle as he eased back into his segmented chair. “No need to apologize.” Shafts of moonlight cast an ethereal aura within the observatory. Pallid and wraithlike, DiMA resembled a ghost. Maybe he was.

The interior of Acadia was clean. Too clean by Wasteland standards. Almost sterile, orderly with robotic precision. Crossing to the dais at the center, fingers still tracing the brim of his hat, avoiding those colorless eyes, Nick appealed, “I’d… like to start over, if we can.”

“I would like that, too, Nick.” DiMA said in his flat voice, looking like a pharaoh perched on his throne. The man in the lab coat fussed all around, reattaching conduits and tubing to DiMA’s cranium. Given the state of his physique, with exposed wiring and great sections of polymer skin peeled away, Nick wondered if DiMA was even capable of standing for extended periods of time. The bands of steel interweaving over DiMA’s legs seemed to reinforce this idea.  

 _Well, score one for me._ _Old but mobile._ Nick gave a grim smirk. “Looks like I’ll have to amend my ‘ _alas, I’m the only prototype synth’_ routine.”

“We each strive for greatness. The thing which makes us special, unique, and… essential.” DiMA floated an open palm towards the man in the lab coat. “This is Faraday. Chief technician of Acadia. A lofty requirement here, dealing with analog, digital, and artificial programming.”

“A synth neurosurgeon by any other name.” Nick jested, a smile tugging his lip up.

Faraday’s eyes swung wide between the two of them. “I… most of my work resides in memory and memory retrieval. I’m… not sure what else I can disclose…”

“That’s alright, Faraday.” DiMA’s hand closed over the nervous man’s shoulder. “Nick here… well, he’s family. You know how important family is to me.”

Faraday returned the gesture, squeezing lightly. He glanced at Nick. “Then I assume you’ll want to recall this encounter. Should I retrieve an additional hard drive?” he asked.

DiMA titled his head, saying, “How thoughtful. Yes, dear Faraday. Please.”

The man swept past Nick with his head down, exiting the dome and dissolving into the shadows. Grasping at clues, Nick’s smile faded, and he played with his lighter, turning it over and over in his pocket. “Getting a little long in the tooth, are you? Been there a time or two myself. Keep forgetting my keys or thinking my secretary is my great-aunt from Southie.”

That earned a grim smile from DiMA, looking less like mirth and more like a curving knife wound where his mouth was. “Those like us were never meant to survive this long. You and I, brother – we alone know what it’s like.”

Plucking a cigarette from its rumbled pack, Nick lit the tip. He still wasn’t sold on the _brother_ title. Too casual, too careless a title to fully embrace. He clapped the lighter closed and pocketed it once more. “What what’s like?”

“To be manufactured. Experimented on. To be cast aside.”

“The synths you offer refuge to might argue that.”

DiMA shook his head and appeared genuinely saddened. “They exist as lost children, come home at last. Their journeys are still new, while you and I understand the cruelty of time.” He extended a hand, gesturing off to the shadows of the derelict observatory. “Most come to me confused, unsure of this new world, and frightened. Chase is my only disciple to ever love the Institute.” An intimidating woman emerged from the dark, the tattered remains of a telltale coat hanging from her body.

“A courser,” Nick snarled, whipping the cigarette away from his face. He spun back to DiMA, brushing his coat out of the way, revealing his holstered revolver. “That’s what you’ve been doing with the synths? Handing them right back to the Institute?”

“Come now, Nick,” DiMA scolded behind the slightest hint of smugness. “You’re a better detective than to jump halfcocked to conclusions.”

Replaying their entire conversation is his mind, scrolling back and then forward again, Nick warily asked, “What gave me away as a dick? Was it the endless line of questioning?” He returned the filter to his mouth.

It was unnerving how calmly DiMA looked at him. There were no ragged edges on DiMA’s skin, only clean lines. His artificial flesh had been peeled away intentionally. “No, Nick. I watched them upload your personality. I’ll admit, the choice of a twenty-first century detective seemed bizarre. I don’t think the Institute honestly expected any success with your model. Yet here you are, standing before me, reunited at last.”

“Didn’t exactly come for you,” Nick exclaimed gruffly. The courser took her place at DiMA’s side, the butt of a rifle peeking over her shoulder, moving slow but controlled, a coiled spring ready to snap. His moved his hand just far enough away from his gun to lower suspicion but was sure to maintain a decent firing distance between him, DiMA, and the courser, ready for the situation to sour at any moment.

“No. You came for one of my children.” DiMA placed one elegant hand on the courser’s arm. Her stern face didn’t change at his touch. “Chase merely handles my security. You’ve certainly noticed that tensions are wound quite tight in Far Harbor.”

“Yeah. Might have caught a stern word or two. Can’t say that I blame them for turning the synths out of the harbor, what with you sitting here looking like Frankenstein’s Monster.”

DiMA laughed, but the sound was nowhere near natural. His ‘ _Ha, Ha’_ sounded programmed and distorted, each syllable its own word. “Yes. I can understand the intolerance regarding my appearance. I have undergone many modifications during my time here.”

“Thought you’d had a little work done,” Nick bantered as if he truly was the impish younger brother and DiMA the more subdued older sibling. “Don’t exactly have a basis of comparison, though.”

“You don’t recall me in the slightest, do you?” DiMA asked, more to himself than to Nick. “I admit that upsets me. Have you ever wondered how you escaped the Institute?”

“Figured that they threw me away when I stopped being useful.”

Those soulless eyes drifted, focusing on the past. “No, Nick. I pulled you from the Institute, kicking and screaming. You looked upon me and panicked. I… I had to leave you behind.” It was difficult for DiMA’s face to allow for sorrow. It looked unnatural as his expression pinched. “That was a shameful thing for me to do. It was an act that I regretted every day.”

“If it makes you feel better, this is all news to me.”

“It does… and it doesn’t. But grief and I are old friends.” DiMA stood once more, framed by the cerulean glow of many terminal screens behind him. Chase offered him her arm, which he took, sliding fingers around the crook of her elbow. He raised the other hand in a slow arc, gesturing of the wall of monitors behind him. “You may have wondered what a synth’s soul looks like – this is it. Raw data and information. Catalogs and programs. This is all me, who I am. My attachments and accouterments assist me to compartmentalize learning. Even now I am becoming more than I ever was. Imagine every book ever written, in any language, every guide and recipe for warfare and destruction, every political speech, the teachings of philosophy and religion, all downloaded to a single cortex. I am, for lack of a better designation, a deity among my kind.”

Were it an option, Nick’s throat would have gone dry. Nothing good could come from an immortal robot with a god complex. Terrible things had arisen for pious aims. It was visible in the cracked earth and rad-tainted sky outside. “Plenty of synths could make that claim,” Nick challenged. “Combine the potential for immortality with the drive to read memoirs of visionaries past, and, boom, you’d have a fleet of usurpers vying for that title.”

DiMA shook his head, the vacuum tubes atop his crown caught the moonlight streaming in from the ceiling and refracted it, sending waves of light dancing over the sterile surfaces of the room. “Perhaps I misspoke. The synths that I take in are hollow vessels, new to this world and innocent of its ways. It would take lifetimes for them to compete, to live the atrocities I – and you – have witnessed. While I am filled with knowledge, they are empty. It is my duty to protect them, teach them. Perhaps because I failed you.” Standing tall and proud, he launched into additional exposition. “Socrates, Aristotle, Matthew, Sartre – they all had a certain... _caution_ to their tales that I will not discard. Acadia and Far Harbor have much in common. Our fear and distrust runs deep, and for good reason. They have done terrible things. And so have I. Should the floodgates open, it will be Acadia that survives. The fog condensers, they are my design, my… _gift_ to the people of Far Harbor.”

“Yeah, a gift with strings, I’ll bet.” Though it made little sense, Nick felt guilty. Of what, he wasn’t sure – For not remembering? Not stopping DiMA before this point? For it not being him that stepped up to speak for their race instead? And why couldn’t it have been? Nick had certainly been granted enough time to so. Instead, while Nick had been off busying himself with a career, DiMA had been the very first synth to rebel against its makers **.** But, this – being sequestered away, denied the whole world – was not the choice Nick would have made. “Look,” Nick declared. “Not that I can hate on your all are welcome line, but you ain’t exactly helping the synths that come here. You’re just hiding them, keeping them in a box. That ain’t freedom, and that’s no way to live.”

Faraday returned to the room, hugging a hefty storage drive to his chest. He froze at Nick’s accusation, feeding the intuition that, yes, DiMA was, in his own way, holding synths hostage. Maybe it was for their safety, but DiMA had let Danse leave, knowing he was a synth. But Danse had spent minutes here, not long enough to build a relationship… or learn something he shouldn’t have. Maybe they were kept to ensure silence. _There’s a thought._

Where a normal person would have sighed in defeat or screamed in defense, DiMA just went still, Chase at his side, supporting him, her eyes as flat as his. “I want no qualm with Far Harbor. You may have witnessed the lights that mark the perimeter to the marina. Those are the fog condensers. They turn back the fog and remain the only devices standing between the people of the town and devastation. We at Acadia built those long ago as a gift for the human inhabitants with the hope that we would be welcomed.” He hung his heavily-augmented head. “Alas, such was not to be. They accepted our condensers, but then our kind was dispatched from the harbor, along with the ghouls, and sent off to fend for ourselves.”

Nick frowned and tapped the filter of his smoke against his lower lip. “And if those condensers were destroyed or disabled?”

“The fog would roll in and claim the island fully,” DiMA answered with grave certainty. “It was with the best of intentions that I created them. But should I be challenged, my people threatened, I will do what is necessary. Listen.” Nick complied. A steady rumble vibrated throughout the building. It was almost unperceivable. “I control the flow of power to the island. Should the need arise, there will be no violence on behalf of Acadia. We will very simply shut that power down, disable the condensers, and let fog take them. A natural course of evolution. We would be unopposed. Darwin would be proud.”

An ill feeling tugged at Nick’s polyvinyl guts. With a heavy heart, he recognized the makings of a dictator. Hell, he’d been in Diamond City for the election of 2282, and had seen firsthand how ‘ _us vs. them’_ panned out. “You’re taking about mass murder. Snuffing out Far Harbor in one go.”

DiMA shook Chase off and took a step towards Nick, a wall of monitors looming behind. “Make no mistake, I want no war with Far Harbor. I have built such a fragile house of cards. There are bodies stacked on both sides. Stand with me, brother. You and I can convince them to repent. It’s not too late. They still have the capacity to change their ways.” 

“While you sit here as the proverbial Man on the Mountain? Maybe it’s you that has to change, _brother_ , not them. _One may smile and smile and be a villain._ Guess you never uploaded Hamlet. It’s about a man who refused to make a decision and, subsequently, everyone dies. How many more have gotta lose their lives before you’re satisfied?”

“Far Harbor is inconsequential. I allow them to exist, and so they do. An example to those who join me. A lesson in arrogance and bigotry. We are all alone together, separate from the people of Far Harbor. Time marches on, and they will wither and die while I remain exactly as I am. No. Not as I am. Better. I may have been intended to fade into obscurity, but I will not be buried. I will be remembered, respected, and, when necessary, feared.” All traces of humanity wiped from DiMA’s face. _“_ You would choose human life over yours and mine? How disappointing. I wanted so much for you.”

“That’s what family does – they let you down.” Best to grab Kasumi and run. It felt like the entire island was about to combust at any moment. If the worst was to occur, if he became the only thing that stood between DiMA and the destruction of an entire town, Nick wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop him, either by enticing him with reason or with a bullet. Disappointment loomed tall and fierce to have found a link to his past only to find it corrupted in so many ways.

The door leading outside banged open, causing Nick to leap and drop his cigarette, startled like a character from a slap-stick comedy. He swung towards the sound, hand wrapping around his revolver.

Framed in the doorway, dirt caked up to his knees and winded, Danse gasped, “Is he here?”

“What happened?” Nick asked, pulling his hand from his gun.

“ _John_!” Danse shouted, his eyes white-rimmed and petrified. “ _Is he here_?”


	11. Let's Talk About Faith

DANSE

Far Harbor, ME

February 24th, 2288

“ _John_!”

It was tactically irresponsible to be standing out in the open, yelling. But fright had leeched into Danse’s lungs, making his shouts hoarse as he breathlessly screamed John’s name at the churning fog and treacherous mountains. His voice was swallowed up by the thick foliage of the forest. Stout, black bodies of trees loomed, closing in on him like sinister gargoyles. Rucksack on his back and rifle in his hands, he rotated in a full circle, scanning for movement.

“ _John_!” he yelled again and begged for any hint of a direction to head in. He had seen John draw fire and split the group of trappers. Having lost the few that pursued him, Danse had circled back to the boat and ventured beyond it, only to have a noiseless and still night, thick with fog, engulf him. Something large and far-off had bellowed as he had run past the boat, only to fall mute now that Danse was in a position to track it. The monster’s eerie calls had echoed, and now Danse doubted that his choice of direction had been correct.

The skirmish appeared to be over. No gunshots or voices could be heard, only the faint trickle of water as it flowed through tributaries. Wherever John was, he’d ceased to fight. Icicles of horror crackled to life, piercing Danse’s chest from multiple directions and his heart struggled to beat. He pushed himself to keep going, keep looking. Even if John had been taken, he might still be alive. Danse mowed across narrow streams, stamping through mud and up rocky mounds to find flat earth, Righteous Authority out before him, searching for any type of trail to guide him. Instead of good fortune, he found chunks of deep fog too dangerous to linger in.

_“John!”_

Any shout in his direction, any burst of gunfire would give him a path to answers. Silence thundered across the landscape. Not for the first time, he longed for his power armor, particularly its head lamp and navigational devices. He spun, searching for signs of any type of settlement. The trappers hadn’t dissipated into thin air, they had a base somewhere. Far Harbor knew the island. Acadia knew the island. Danse was at a disparaging disadvantage. Continuing to charge off into the night would ensure that he would never be able to find John, a likely cost him his own life in the process.

Glancing up the mountain, he saw Acadia’s observatory sitting like a lump above the treetops. No fog crowned Acadia. The observatory sat too high atop the mountain, escaping from where that unnerving mist clung to the forest and shoreline. If John was wily – and he was – he would head for the nearest fortified shelter, which happened to be Acadia. That is… if was able to. The island was too large to traverse alone, too strange. Danse needed backup. He rummaged in his pack for another tablet of Rad-X, the night chill soaking through his clothing as he made towards the station.

Guided by the red glow of Righteous Authority’s charged cells, Danse picked a careful way back through the brush of the land, following his own broken path through the damp vegetation. A snapped branch here, a deep footprint there, he had clearly been careless in his flight, terror overriding his own good sense. He found the stream, the boat, the path, the junkyard fences of Acadia.  

The refuge was no longer vacant. Several figures stood in guard shacks and on the roof, dark silhouettes against the silvery haze of moonlight. He slowed as he approached, and kept his hands in plain view, shallow but rapid breaths making his chest heave. If working his synth angle would rescue John, a proud synth he would be. He opened his mouth to confess, to pledge allegiance, but was interrupted.

“Saw him on the monitors,” someone called, one guard to another. “He’s good.” Someone – some _synth_ – waved him by. Danse broke into a frantic charge and ascended the steps. He yanked the door open and spotted Valentine almost instantly. “Is he here?”

“What happened?” the old synth asked, his body language tense.

“ _John_!” Danse shouted. “Is he here?” His eyes scanned the foyer, moving past Valentine and across the enclosure of the dome, brushing over the three figures that stood under it. The other Gen-2, he knew of. Some man stood nearby, clearly a scientist of sorts. But the third…

All thoughts of John drained as he wrenched his rifle up to eye level. A courser, come to haul him back to the Institute. Did this goddamned island have no end to its surprises? The courser reached into her long, heavy coat, pulling a handgun. Seeing a courser with a ballistic firearm was peculiar, but she handled it naturally. “Lower your arms, comrade,” she instructed in a flat tone.

His nerves burned with a desire to reduce the courser to a pile of red-tinged ash. DiMA stepped in front of her in tandem with Valentine blocking Danse. “Hold it, big guy,” the detective pleaded. “This isn’t how we get out of this.”

The other man, dressed in a lab coat, watched the scene with terrified eyes, making for cover while simultaneously waving a pleading hand. “Please! Don’t fire in here!” he screeched. “The central computer! The processors! I could never replace any of it!”

“Chase,” DiMA addressed the courser, placating her with an open palm. “Set the example.” Her fingers tightened on the grip of her gun before she conceded and lowered the barrel.

Danse’s aim held steady. “Danse,” Valentine urged, hissing at him through gritted teeth. “This place is a powder keg. Don’t be the guy that tosses the match.”

Cold sweat rolled down Danse’s neck. His chest expanded and contracted in jagged spasms. This was no time to indulge his bloodlust. John needed him. The lost girl, Kasumi, needed him. Judging by the desperation in his eyes, Valentine needed him. But his grip remained solid, muscles refusing obeying reason. Every instinct told him to shoot. His training, his programming, Maxson’s axioms, all ran too deep, hardwired into him. “You must understand,” he cautioned both DiMA and the courser. “I was with the Brotherhood. I was… programmed by the Institute to follow their code. Standing down against a courser… I’m... not sure if that’s in my power, or something I even consider _right_.”

“The twisted nature of the Institute knows no bounds,” DiMA admitted as the courser put her weapon away. She fell back, giving the three of them the floor while watching from the shadows. “Your reaction to Chase’s presence is understandable. But we accept all synths here, be they agents of the Institute… or the Brotherhood of Steel.”

Acceptance. Danse hadn’t realized how much he craved it. Most of his life – no, his _entire_ life – had been spent fearing one type of discovery or another. His muscles turned to water and his weapon dropped to sway against his side by the strap. From half-behind a monitor, the man in the coat gulped a relieved breath and scurried to one side of the observatory, lifting some weighty type of drive into an open slot in a console.

Danse’s flight across the island snapped back into his mind and he gasped. “Trappers,” he said, and took Valentine by the arms. “They took John!”

“What? Why?” Valentine seemed baffled.

He released the synth to grab one of the rolled hides still stacked against a wall. The ribbed texture felt sickeningly like John’s. “This!” he exclaimed, shaking it out in full view of everyone watching. “Trappers engage in the exchange of ghoulskin!” He fixed furious eyes on DiMA as he flung the pelt aside. “You’ve been here for quite some time and I doubt this is news to you,” he accused. This ancient synth likely ran the entire island. He was certainly this oldest _thing_ here with any sentience.  

At the edge of Danse’s vision, Valentine stooped to inspect the hide. “That ain’t… well, damn.” He stood. Now they both faced DiMA. “Care to explain, hermano?” 

DiMA set his mouth and glanced away. He rotated his palms together, the fingertips brushing. “Each civilization has its own ethos… and its own demons. The struggle between the people of Far Harbor and the island’s ghouls is old. Likely as old as the bombs. Longstanding by the time I arrived.” He looked back at them, thinly veiled disdain on his face. “To see oneself as good and just, an adversary must be provided. Before the Children of Atom, before us, Far Harbor condemned the ghouls. You will find the treachery there, not here.”

Having finished his installment, the man in the lab coat returned, explaining, “The offerings on the island are few. We get so many new members with nothing to their name. We have to provide supplies for them somehow. A lightweight material with radioactive absorption that gives the wearer partial immunity, we couldn’t pass that up. Our harbor operative sends them to us.”

Chase the courser gave the man a sharp look, as if he’d let something slip. “Since bullets won’t buy themselves,” she declared, “it’s become mutually beneficial for the Trappers to trade with Far Harbor. They leave the marina alone and gain supplies while the island’s ghouls are picked off. Though the smarter ones, the ones that talk, are long since extinct here.”

“And ya didn’t take that as a flashing red sign to set up shop elsewhere?” Valentine growled at DiMA. He snorted, “What is it they say about those that forget history? _First, they came for the ghouls, and I did not speak out. Next, they came for the Believers. Then, they came for the synths_ …”

“You condone murder,” Danse spat at the atrocity that called itself DiMA. Sucking anxious gulps of air, his head pounded, and his chest was tight. Murder. Using the deaths of ghouls to improve a human quality of life. Once, he would have commended Far Harbor’s ingenuity and Acadia’s complacency towards it. Now, it made him nauseous.

“No!” DiMA argued, a dangerous mask overtaking his features, blanketing it in fury. “I wouldn’t…. I am not the villain,” he insisted. “All parties do what they can to survive. Such is the nature of our reality.” He paused, rolling his shoulders back and, just as suddenly, his face returned to its placid expression “Of course we will assist you in any way possible. Chase,” he turned to the courser. “Have Faraday review the monitors from the other locations. Tell him to look for refuge sites that bands of Trappers might fall back to. Compile a list and return.”

“As you say,” she said, bowing her head a little too low for common courtesy. She disappeared through a doorway, but not before passing too close to Danse for his liking. Before his sneer could fully form, she was gone.

“You look like hell,” Valentine told him. That was certainly how he felt. “I swear, one of you is always in trouble. Take a few minutes to get yourself together,” the old synth advised, before glaring back at the other one. “My brother and I need to discuss the finer points of getting by without condoning slaughter.” Valentine stalked towards DiMA.

Grateful to be dismissed, Danse backed into a stairwell. Pressure still building in his chest, he took flight after flight down, putting distance between him and the group above before the dam broke. When he ran out of stairs, he flung both his pack and his rifle down and sat heavily on the bottommost step to face a plane of concrete. The dull hum of machinery droned through walls that pushed in with claustrophobic intent. Danse hovered at the edge of despair and closed his eyes.

Undiscourageable John, chasing him everywhere, standing by his side in Sanctuary, in Rivet City, in Bravo, all along the Eastern seaboard. All Danse had to offer him was constant danger, disagreements, and denial. Blinking to avoid tears, his eyes fell on their pack. John’s daily remedy, time and hope in a little blue syringe, was in that bag, worthless now without him. If John was still alive, and was miraculously able to put off turning feral, hundreds of years from now, when Danse’s carefully constructed body had degraded and his flesh hung in strips the way it did on Valentine and DiMA, would John still love him? He knew that the answer was yes.

One coughing sob escaped, and Danse’s hands shook as he pressed them to his forehead.

“Are you alright?” someone asked from within the stairwell.

Peeling his hands from his face, he answered, “No. I most certainly am not.” He wanted to stew in his own self-loathing, an art which he had been perfecting for weeks, and not be bothered.

His inquisitor was a young woman wearing a drab mechanic’s jumpsuit in a moss green hue. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she offered with a concerned expression, reaching out to touch him on the shoulder. He recoiled. As if he wanted help from some synth. He caught that thought too late and guilt spread throughout him like wildfire, mingling with failure. For all he had learned, sometimes he hadn’t learned anything.

“I… I don’t think it matters anymore,” was his honest answer. He fought a trembling in his jaw. This was par for Danse’s life now… having the things he cared about striped and stolen away. It was likely that John was dead. Another mission to retrieve a body. How many times had he undertaken such a task? Ten? A dozen? It was always a paladin that led the retrieval, that fought to keep morale from tanking during the quest.

The girl took a seat sat next to him. For the longest time, they didn’t say anything. “So… you’re new here?” she asked once their silence had turned oppressive.

“I… Yes. I am.” That was true, too. Not that he’d be staying. He felt fit to sink the island to the bottom of the sea.

“I see it in your eyes,” she said, her eyes lightly skipping over his features. “Being lost. I felt that way too, even before I knew why.”

Danse gave a low, bitter laugh. “ _Lost_ ,” he repeated, bracing elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. “I had always felt… _set apart_ from my peers. I had assumed that it was because I was… because of my preferences. Only now do I realize that it was my synth brain warning me that I was different.”

She nodded, hands tucked between her knees. With her back bowed she seemed tiny in comparison to him. “I understand. I abandoned my old life. It wasn’t fair to the people that thought... that thought I was someone else. I felt so alone, even with them around.”

“No,” Danse disagreed, shaking his head negative. Haylen. Sterling. _John._ “I wasn’t alone. I had people that cared for me, stood up for me, that were willing to risk everything to keep me with them. They didn’t care that I was designed for infiltration and sabotage. They loved me. _He_ loved me.”

“The one you lost?” Her cheeks turned pink and she looked down. “I’m sorry. Acadia is wired for sound distribution from the observatory. When DiMA talks with strangers, he likes us to listen. Thinks it will make us careful, cautious. It works. I maintain the speaker systems down here.”

“Yes,” he answered her. “The very same.” He felt light-headed and disgusted. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that DiMA wanted to pipe his control through his base. Maxson did the very same thing; when he spoke, his subordinates were meant to pay attention. Danse carded fingers through his hair, pulling at the strands. “I… feel that the cruelest part of this is that I will never see him again. Not in this life, nor beyond.”

She glanced up and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a machine. When I die, it will be like unplugging a hot plate. No light, no warmth, just finality.” He had abandoned all thoughts of God or salvation once learning of his true identity. Danse’s soul didn’t exist. He walked, he talked, he felt, but he wasn’t truly alive. When he died, only the blackness of oblivion waited for him, no reward, no grand ascension, no apologizing to the men who had served under him and lost their lives, and no ludicrous hopes of seeing John or Cutler ever again.

It took her a moment to respond. “Do you really believe that?”

Danse wanted to put his fist through the wall. Instead, he gave a simple shake of his head. “What choice do I have? My faith has been taken from me.”

Her small hand squeezed his shoulder. As he looked at her, her bright smile cut a path through his hopelessness. “That’s the thing about faith,” she said. “It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just something you feel because you have to. Because it keeps you going. Gives you hope. If you can’t have that… then what’s the point, you know?”

Her words had a calming effect on him. His breathing steadied and the tension in his back lessened. He studied her as if seeing her for the first time. She had almond-shaped eyes, chin length black hair, and a youthful, if naïve, disposition.

Taking a chance, he asked, “Are you Kasumi?”

She only looked flustered for a moment. “Yeah, that’s me.”

After all they had gone through, Kasumi was the one to have found _him_. “I was sent here to find you. Your parents love you, Kasumi. They are quite distraught.”

Kasumi smiled sadly and let go of his shoulder. She held her hands in her lap and looked small again. “They don’t understand how big the world is. I’ve been lying to them this whole time…”

“It’s not lying if you didn’t know.”

“Did you know?” she asked him.

“I… No.” The memory of his flight from the Glowing Sea came back to him, the confusion, the frightening feeling of desperation. “I was discovered. I had to run, leaving everything I knew behind.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry.” She blinked and glanced away. “That sounds terrible.”

Another person telling him that they were sorry. _You’re going to get tired of hearing people say that,_ Harkness had warned in Rivet City. “It could have been,” he responded. “John, he… he came after me, kept me safe. And I repaid him by giving up.”

“Is he the one you’re looking for?”

“He is… he… was.” Another moment of uncomfortable silence. “Now, I don’t know what to do…”

“That’s how many find themselves here,” Kasumi explained. “Lost without purpose. But I chose this. I’m meant to be here. I’m going to do great things for Acadia, for the whole island. Just you watch.”

Danse stared down at his boots, caked with mud and mire from his run through that sinister forest. “I hope you’re right. This godforsaken place needs all the help it can get.”

She stood and offered him a hand. He didn’t take it. “It’s not too late, you know,” she said, an encouraging smile playing at her lips. “Don’t lose hope. No telling what’s going on out there tonight. Try and get a few hours of sleep. I’ll help you look for your friend once it’s light out.”

“I… thank you.” With Acadia’s assistance… was there still a chance? John was survivor _– a cockroach with at least a few lives left –_ Danse thought with grim humor. He accepted Kasumi’s outstretched hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet.

“No problem.” She winked at him. “Of course I’d help my brother.”

_Brother._

Danse’s mouth went dry.


	12. Glory Be

JOHN

Unknown Location

Unknown Time

The crashing surf pounded the shoreline, roaring in John’s ears. The air smelled of salt and rusted copper. When he opened his eyes, he was back in his bed in the room he grew up in. He threw back the quilt that covered him, planted his feet on the cool, tiled floor and padded into the back offices of the pedestal observation tower where his family made their home, far below the dangers of the crumbling statue above. The executive offices where his parents had lived were lavishly decorated with paintings lifted from the city’s museums, battered and rusted weaponry displayed on the walls, plush rugs underfoot and various ornate items scattered throughout the home. Tall, narrow windows framed blue skies and the open ocean.

As he walked, a pool of light followed him, leaving the rest of his environment shrouded in darkness. His parents had taken him to a play once – _Henry V_ – and the dancing beam that followed the players on stage was much akin to the pool of stark light that clung to him. “Ma?” he called out. “Pa?” The McDonoughs weren’t here. Looking down at his hand, he touched their wedding bands, gold rings of different widths slipped onto the first two fingers on his left hand. He spun them slightly and caught sight of himself in a cracked window. His reflection was younger, barely more than a child, dressed in a battered black suit, and human. The certainty of where and when he was became clear. “I know what day this is,” he said.

This was the day that his parents had been buried amongst the trees behind the star-shaped base that occupied Liberty Isle. He panicked, loss washing over him, knowing that everything was going to change, fearing that his brother would be coming to take him away. He had to protect himself, and he pawed at his suit, looking for something that he could use for defense. Nothing. He might as well have been naked. One hand drifted to his hip, the other to the hollow of his throat. No flag, no Brotherhood-issued dog tags. Both items gone. Without the keepsakes of Garrett and Danse, he felt light, untethered, the fabric of his reality wrenching apart.

“Did you lose something?” a voice asked. It had a resonating quality to it, like the words had been recorded on an old, scratched holotape. There was a man in the empty foyer with him. The figure was blurry, a distorted haze shimmering at the edges of its nearly solid black form. John supposed that he should have been startled by the other being’s presence… but hadn’t he always been here? In the dark, in the quiet moments when no one was watching, just out of reach? It had certainly been there that night in the State House basement when John had shed his human visage. A low undertone at the back of John’s mind whispered that he should know who this is, but the being of fog had no face, no features he could pick out. 

“Had things that were important to me,” John said, hand knotting at his throat, regardless of the empty space there. “Guess they didn’t make the trip.” He didn’t choose the words. Instead, they bubbled up from someplace beyond his consciousness. 

“This is only the first fork in your road,” the foggy figure pointed out, a hint of delight playing in his voice. “Plenty of time for loss along the way.”

The piercing shriek of a feral ghoul made John’s ears ring. He spun, wide eyes searching for it.

A hand grasping his sleeve turned him. “ _John_! Everyone is waiting for you!” Guy spat as he pulled him down a twisting staircase of metal and concrete. With only the pool of light to guide him, the stairs were precarious. “Why do I have to keep cleaning up your messes?” Despite his age, time had not been kind to his brother. He was wider around the middle than their father had ever been, and his hairline crept towards his crown. Disappointment and disgust soared at the sight of him. John couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stomach being in his brother’s presence.

John wrenched his arm away and almost fell backwards. For a moment, they were themselves again, John in gnarled skin and Guy with his gray mustache. “You set the example, big brother. I look to you.” Just as suddenly, they reverted. “But we ain’t the same,” John insisted. “My house isn’t made outta glass and I might turn to salt but at least I know where I came from!”

“I am not my brother’s keeper,” Guy insisted from several steps down the staircase.

“And you won’t lead me into the field.”

Moving swiftly for someone his size, Guy wielded a length of splintered femur bone, lunging the point at John’s heart. The stairs disintegrated into microscopic ash, sending John plummeting through black, empty space…

…to be deposited onto the streets of New New York. He tried to brace himself as he landed, pavement scraping the palms of his smooth-skinned hands. The smell gave the city away – oil, trash, burning gas, charred steel buildings and history. Smog and floating ash made it difficult to breathe. “What the hell happened?” he gasped, pushing himself to his feet. He wants in the suit anymore. He now wore the comfortable outfit of his adolescence – a loose shirt, slacks, and laceless loafers.

“Oh, that?” The being of fog was nearby, leaning back on the bench of a blown-out bus stop. “That was just a metaphor. It’s not important.”

“That was different.” He hadn’t fought with his brother the day their parents were laid to rest, only later in life, and under the guise of John Hancock.

“Sure was,” the fog agreed. “It’s all Biblical, or maybe Greek – tragic-like and lightning bolts. Don’t read too far into it. The text rarely contains additional subtext.” 

In their youths, he and Guy had never come to blows, remaining coolly indifferent to one another. But that was before John had left home to search for his teenage girlfriend in the hellish environment of Manhattan and spent seven years on the road. Even standing here now, beneath rectangular screens of broken glass and exposed wires and long-dark marquees towering above the sidewalks, Times Square felt alien and hostile. The city looked grim, devoid of color or people, indirect sunlight barely cresting the giant buildings to cast the streets in shades of gray. The spotlight was gone, streets illuminated by the subtle green hue of radiation clinging to the metropolis. The buildings shimmered just out of focus, like a highway mirage on a hot day. A terrifying memory began to claw at him. “I don’t belong here.”

“No,” the fog concurred, “you don’t.” The specter gestured at him, pointing a finger. “You’ve got something on you.”

John followed the fog’s gesture, looking down at himself. Blood speckled his white shirt, and he patted himself down, looking for injuries, before remembering that the splatter had come from a mutant, the thing he’d killed that had screamed upon death. Wisps of his blonde hair blew into his face as he continued to stand immobile in the road like a moron. Feeling the pull of inevitably, John seethed at the fog, “You know I hate this part.”

A strong, burly person collided into John, jerking on the back of his shirt and pulling him into a run. Ginger-haired Mallory yelled, “John, let’s go! Get to the harbor!” Taller and fitter than John, his friend took the lead as they darted around piles of rubble and jumped steel support beams that lay at perilous angles in the street. The street warped, stretching impossibly long. Mal kept pace while John fell further and further behind, each step a battle, his legs too heavy to keep up.

“ _Mal, stop_! _Wait!”_ John’s shouts emerged as whispers, the words trapped in his throat. _“I know how this ends!”_ They weren’t headed to the harbor, to safety, to home. They were heading south, into the smoky green haze that hung over Downtown.  

An explosion of bullets tore chucks out of the pavement between them. They dove to opposite sides of the street. John, with his own brand of luck, fell through an open grate in the sidewalk, landing in a pile of trash at the bottom. He righted himself and scuttled back into a corner, surrounded by concrete walls and a square of sickly-looking open sky above. Gunfire faded, and John held his breath through the short silence that followed. Then, someone started screaming.

“Puny human gone,” a mutant muttered. “But big one make good eats.”

“ _No_!” he heard Mallory cry. “ _No! John! John, help! Help me! Please_!” The brother of his girlfriend – his dead girlfriend, John reminded himself – kept shrieking his name in a breathless, terrified manner. John’s hand fell to the weapon he carried, a converted blunderbuss, but he remained still as the dead in his hole. Revealing his location would only result in them both being killed. From beyond the open hatch above, Mal’s screams, accompanied by the wet sound of tearing flesh and crack of bone, went on forever as John waited for both safety and night to make his escape. The fog joined him in the square pit, sitting calmly in a corner.

John’s head felt heavy and he reached up to feel the firm edges of his tricorn perched atop his crown. He caught sight of crimson sleeves and scarred hands. “This isn’t real,” John said, pulling himself out of the scene, grounding his mind against illusion. The hole he was in began to fade.

“No,” the man of fog said. “It’s not.”

“You’re no goddamn help at all,” John sneered. All the damned figure did was confirm facts John already knew. What a god-awful guide. In a wave of injustice and rage, he threw himself at the fogman…

…and barreled into Vic, knocking him onto the balcony of the State House. Having been disarmed in the battle, they both grappled on the terrace, John’s newfound ghoul strength barely matching the power behind Vic’s blows. They both smelled of gunpowder and cigarettes. Shots were going off in all directions, the steady whir of Ashmaker making certain that anyone who made it out of the front door was cut down. Lank black hair fell into Vic’s Psycho-mad eyes and he delivered a blow to John’s face that would have broken his nose if there had been any remaining cartilage left. Outmatched and overpowered, Vic bent John backwards over the railing, prepared to either break his spine or upheave him to drop headfirst onto the stone street below.

Grasping for anything he could find, John’s hand tangled in a cord strung with a flurry of red, white and blue pennants that draped across the balcony’s banister. Lanky John slid out of Vic’s reach. He ripped the cord loose and rolled across the balcony floor, winding the length of it up as he tumbled. “Finn!” John shouted, his frock swinging as he twirled about Vic, looped the cord around the man’s neck as fat fingers closed over John’s throat. They both struggled to strangle the other, John winding the cord again and again rather than try to push Vic off. Reliable Finn appeared, knocking a shoulder into Vic, causing him to release his hold on John. Coughing, John choked out, “Over!” Finn looked at him, then back at Vic. Both he and John dove, taking Vic by one leg and hoisting him over the side of the balcony. The portly mobster dropped, pulling the length of pennants taut. The sound of Vic’s neck snapping was satisfying against the silence of spent gunfire.

John puffed, watching him swing, ocean waves crashing beneath the balcony, the smell of salt air mingling with gunpowder. Lifting his head to Finn, he asked, “You got ‘em, right? It’s done?” Finn’s nod sent a surge of pride streaking through John’s limbs. He smiled, blood in his teeth. “I did it,” he huffed. “It’s finally mine.”

Standing on the terrace before a gathering crowd of people, he felt two impacts strike his torso, knocking him back a step. In a cold panic, he parted his ruffled shirt down the middle. Two holes were imbedded in his chest, weeping blood. No. This was all wrong. Shaking his head, John mumbled, “This never happened.”

The man of fog looked over the railing at Vic slowly rotating on his noose. “Didn’t it? Hmm. Maybe I got the dates wrong.”

John closed his shirt, irritation growing. The fog was dragging him through memories, taunting him with riddles and raising questions John didn’t know how to ask. “Look, don’t you have someplace to be?” he spat at the figure.

“Not immediately, no,” the fog answered, still glancing over the edge. It turned to him, a swirling black mist in place of its face. Its form broadened slightly, taking on a familiar build. “What do you want, John?” it asked in Danse’s voice. “Our lives aren’t ours to waste. We were made different – _special_ – in order to help others. It’s not a gift, it’s a responsibility.”

All of the images, the places he had seen,and  he still wasn’t sure why he was reliving these instances. “Is this a revelation?” he questioned, wondering how he could possibly interrogate a non-corporeal form. Violence. Violence always worked.

“Did you reach some grand epiphany just now?” was the pert answer it responded with.

“Not particularly,” John answered truthfully.

“Then, no.”

John was walking. It was sunny and the transition between the perpetual dimness of Goodneighbor to the cheerful sun and clear skies of the Commonwealth left him blinking. Nate handed him a Nuka as they tramped by a Red Rocket station on their way north. Half the Nukas in Nate’s pack were always ice cold. “I have a name,” John said as they traveled. Nate raised a brow at him. “I have a life,” John continued, cracking the cap of his Nuka. The liquid inside the bottle flared a brilliant, blinding green so bright he had to look away. When the light faded the bottle was filled with sand, which he poured out before discarding the bottle. “I have friends and a crowd of people who love me. I can only feel so bad that you don’t have any of that. But you’re just starting out. The rest of us – we’ve been here a long time. And I’m fine. I’ve got everyone in my corner now.”

Fog clung to Nate, enshrouding him in mist until he had been fully absorbed. The man of fog walked beside him now, vaguely echoing Nate’s form and gear. Instead of the _111_ on his back, the number _13_ stood out in golden metallic foil. “And where did it get you?” the vault dweller-fog asked as they crossed the bridge. “It’s coming for you. Can’t you feel it?”

John could. There was a radstorm on the way. He could smell it, feel it deep in his bones. It sent shivers down his spine. But the storm wasn’t in the air. It was inside of him.

“This would have happened one way or another,” the fog claimed. “It was rigged from the start.”

“You don’t know that,” John argued as they entered the Sanctuary Hills development. 

“ _You_ don’t know that,” the fog countered.

A Brahmin mooed from somewhere down the street. Clad in his armor, Danse stepped into the road, looking just as cold and callous as he had in Harford. “How high am I?” John asked the fog. “Do you see him, too?”

“Oh. Nevermind him.” The fog had Nate’s voice. “The paladin’s promised to keep his weapon holstered. You’re safe.”

This was a memory, the day he’d first come to Sanctuary. Nate had showed up in Goodneighbor a few days after Halloween. Four days later, they arrived here, where Danse had already been stationed. Nate was an asshole for bringing them to the same location, but how could he have known?

Danse stood there in the street, staring at John like he was filth. That was fair. John deserved it. He’d killed Knight Rhys, a former friend of Danse’s – or, at least a colleague – and then lied about it. They didn’t mislead each other. That isn’t what they did. They hurt themselves with truths, not lies. John had earned that punishing glare.

The fog sighed and handed its ethereal pack off to Codsworth, who tutted away with it. “None of this matters yet. We’re still in the first act – counting down to midnight. Miles to go before the glow. You’ll have your moment. Then you can take your bow, get off the stage, and wait for the encore. This isn’t really your story, anyway.”

A lifetime of Mentats wouldn’t unravel these riddles. John was frustrated and itched for a chimeric cigarette. “Ya know, this is getting depressing. You should go. Or, I should.”

A sense of sadness came from the fog. With it came a blanket of darkness, dampening John’s senses. “Are you really ready for that?”

Somewhere amid pressing haze and confusion, John knew the answer. “Yes.”

Black lessened to gray.

A numbing cloud lifted from his perception. The disembodied feeling of floating was gradually replaced by the solid sensation of cold steel beneath him. The faint flicker of soft, orange light tickled through his eyelids. John moved his limbs curiously, half-expecting to be tied down, restrained, something.

He opened his eyes to rectangular patterns of ceiling panels inlayed above his head, a handbreadth away from his face. Firelight and metal walls slid in and out of focus. On his back, he felt like an offering out on a steel table. Too close to the ceiling, it seemed as if he was resting on top bunk within cramped sleeping quarters. He felt warm, rested, and… high? His thoughts were cloudy, and his nerves tingled. He teetered on a familiar edge of euphoria, of the urge to do something stupid with reckless abandon. It felt as if he had done a shitton of chems and remembered none of it. Good times, usually.

He ran his hands over the hardened skin and puckered whorls decorating his face. His dream-vision-hallucination left him reeling, deeply troubled and confused. Had that been… the Sight? Mama Murphy was so old, but John had probably taken as many rad-laced chems in his short lifetime as she had managed in hers. The thought was frightening, and he grasped for his flag and tags. This time, he found them both present and sighed with relief.

Everything came back in a single, jarring moment. The Trappers. The island’s monster. The way he had wrought radiation, making it do what he pleased. And Danse. Where was Danse?

Overcome with a frantic need to escape, John forced himself up and slid from the bunk. He was rewarded for his effort with droves of dizzying nausea. He limbs felt wooden and he tumbled to the ground, knocking a skeleton from the bed beneath him. For a few minutes, he lay wheezing. Under his bandana, his head pounded. He was thirsty and almost certainly dehydrated, a dangerous state for a ghoul with already limited amounts of body fluid. When he was able to work up enough drive, he hoisted himself up. Once steadied, he gave the chamber a second glance. Rows and rows of human skeletons lay on adjoining bunks stretching across the entire room, lit in partial illumination by candlelight, the tapers jammed into the tops of skulls or spent fusion cores, and glowing pots of ooze. A tomb. He had been placed inside of a crypt. _Goddamn creepy_. He had nothing with him but his attire – the leather pants and boots, his flag, his rings, Danse’s tags, and the white undershirt than he had worn underneath his long-gone jacket. His eyes darted about, searching. The layout seemed reminiscent of somewhere else, someplace he’d recently been. Almost like –

“Fuck me.” The metal walls and bulkheads looked like those on the Rivet City carrier. Was he underwater? Still wobbly, he staggered to a hatch and cranked the wheel, forcing it open. No ocean water rushed in to drown him as the door opened. _In the bowels of a vessel then._

Off-balance and lightheaded, he dragged himself up torch-lit stairways, sure to keep one hand on the wall should he stumble. As his empty belly rumbled, he shuffled by an enormous chugging generator. Whatever he was trapped in had to be massive, perhaps a ship like Rivet City. He hadn’t seen one, but there was no way to gauge what the fog had been concealing. Dangling bulbs filled with that same sickly yellow ooze were placed just far apart so that the light of one would fade, resulting in several steps in darkness before the glow of the next was visible. Indistinct rhythmic chanting filtered down a stairwell, which he climbed. The stairs ended in a room filled with darkened monitors and rusted consoles. Banners sporting emblems of circles within circles vaguely resembling astronomical shapes hung like tapestries within the main cabin of the vessel. The insignias looked ancient, powerful, and to John’s eyes, sufficiently creepy.

The murmuring chant continued, and John crept around a corner to find a man seated upon a plush chair, his head bowed in prayer. The zealot from the side of the road knelt submissively in a corner, bent so far forward that her face almost touched the mat she sat on. She was small, and her mouth moved silently, her ratty clothes blending into the flooring. The man’s mouth moved metrically, reciting his incantation without pause. A headpiece bearing a crudely shaped representation of an atom adorned his head and bands of ink were tattooed over his face. While his facial tattoos weren’t exactly the same as the banners, they at least bore some semblance. To say that his clothes looked shabby would be high praise.

Still unsteady, John leaned heavily against a console, the leather of his pants making a scratching noise where it rubbed over corroded steel.

The chanting ceased, and the man turned his head, finding John, who willed himself to be anywhere else. “Ah. Our Champion joins us. Many have wagered that you would not arise.”

John pushed away from the wall, forcing himself straight. “Plenty of people have made that bet. I keep on disappointing.” Nausea threatened again. He closed his eyes and inhaled bracingly, wondering why he remained so woozy. A warm buzz rode to air, soothing and smothering at the same time. _Rads_ , he was finally able to pinpoint. He was being force-fed a continual dose of radiation, inhaling it, having it seep through his skin. He shook his head, as if that would clear his rad-induced hangover. “What were you doing?” he questioned the zealot.

She raised her head and peered at him through glazed eyes. “Praying for you,” she answered.

The ghoul’s eyes opened fully as a shiver crawled across his shoulders, causing him to stand a little straighter. “Don’t pray for me. That’s weird and unnecessary.”

“Pay her no mind,” the man told John. “You can go,” he consented, flicking his hand at the zealot in a sharp motion. The woman stood and took one cautious step backwards before darting up a short set of stairs and out of a hatch. It clanged shut behind her. Feeling well enough to not vomit, John studied the man on the throne more intently. An older man, he had an ornery temperament about him, prevalent in the set of his eyes and the lines of his mouth. His irritable eyes raked over John. “I’m told that you have the ability to manipulate the atom, to bend it to your will.”

The balls of rads that he had thrown. Guess word had gotten out. Better to play something that anomalous down. “Yeah, well, that rumor might be slightly exaggerated.”

The man didn’t stand. He looked quite at home to perch on the seat of his chair and let everyone else revolve around him. John knew his type. This guy was the boss. “A number of followers witnessed you commit this act. Should that have been the use of parlor tricks, I assure you that I will not be pleased.”

John wasn’t certain what this admittance would grant him, but he had been caught and might as well ride this out. “I… yeah. Looks like that’s a thing that I do now – slay my enemies with radioactive softballs.”

“My, my. How… impressive. Particularly for one of the Forsaken.”

Name-calling wasn’t new to him. “Yeah,” John muttered, rubbing his temples through his bandana, his nausea being replaced with a throbbing headache. “Aren’t I swell? Is this the part where I get showered in panties and confetti? Not that I’d turn that down, but I’ve felt better.”

The man was unimpressed, and his face puckered in distaste. “You were pulled from one of our holy sites, half-drowned and nearly dead. Crawlers have a habit of wandering too close to Atom’s Spring and must be driven off, lest they destroy or pollute it with their nests. Imagine the surprise of my zealots when they found you as well. Placing you nearest to the reactor seemed prudent. My predecessor had done so before. Gathered the island’s ghouls, the ones that glowed, and placed them close to their gift of life. Alas, none regained the urge to speak, none were visited by the Mother or Atom Himself, and none were calmed to a state where they could be handled. They had to be destroyed. Though, the increased radioactivity appears to have healed you. So, be thankful,” he sternly reprimanded. “You are beholden.”

John bristled, his _savoir_ making him uneasy. The bodies in the compartment. Were those all ghoul skeletons? Humans and ghouls all looked the same once stripped down to bone. He pinched the space between his brows, just above the bony ridge that led to the hole where his nose had been. “Yeah, sure. Thanks for the trippy dream, I guess.”  

Something altered the man’s face, expression changing from vague amusement to stunned alarm. “Dream? What did you see?”

“That’s kinda personal, don’tcha think?” Chatting about his life with old men in ships was not a pastime that John was considering.

The man wasn’t willing to let the subject go. He locked cold eyes onto John, staring up from his seat. “Have you had a revelation?”

“I doubt it,” said John. “That fog-guy and I went over this.”

The man hauled himself out of his chair and stared eye-to-eye with John. “You saw a being of fog?” he asked, gaze sharp.

“Pretty much just said that,” John grumbled. “Creepy guy with no face took me on a road trip through my memories. Kept talking in riddles.”

“Holy Atom Himself spoke to you?” The man’s voice had a reverent edge to it.

Not that he knew who that was, John answered, “I… guess.” It struck him that he might have only one angle to play and changed his approach. “I mean… Yes! And the guy – Atom – he said he had plans for me. Such plans. Important ones.” He waved a finger at the man. “So, you better do what I say and not give me shit.”

The man looked less then intimidated. Instead, an amused smile crept over his face. “I am High Confessor Tektus, high priest to the Church of Atom. You won’t curb me to your whims. You are… _inspiring_ to the family. They are taken by your gifts, and your destruction would be ill received. One of Atom’s Condemned having a vision is unheard of… then again, so is control over the atom. What is your name, Champion?”  

This was becoming disturbing. John had already parted with too much information. “You ain’t getting my name. And _Champion_? What the hell is that shit? Looks more like I’m a hostage.”

“Not a hostage, more of a… mascot,” Tektus clarified. “Occasionally, a chapter will keep a ghoul, usually one that emits Atom’s holy light, as a symbol. A reminder of the link between humanity and the worlds within us all, waiting to be unlocked by the touch of Atom’s will.”

“Sounds more like a pet than a mascot,” John grumbled. “Fail to see the benefit.”

Tektus raised one arm, lifting a finger to the hatch that the woman had crawled out of. “Then venture beyond the vessel. See what awaits you.”

Eager to be on his way, John accepted the challenge, turning his back on Tektus and marching for the hatch, metal stairs ringing as he climbed them. He threw his weight into twisting the wheel above his head and, with a clank and bang, he tossed the hatch open. Grabbing the lip, he pulled himself up and out of the vessel, drawing his legs close to him and swinging them over the side.

A stifling wave of radiation crashed over him. As he stood upright, he found that he was mounted atop a submarine housed above a pool of glowing, radioactive slime. An enormous concrete bunker surrounded the entire vessel, creating a type of nuclear sauna. Additional candles, skulls and standards bearing more of those symbolic marks dotted the enclosure. Beyond the vessel, wooden shacks had been erected in levels, a city within the chamber. In every doorway, on each footpath, a Child of Atom had fallen to their knees, hands raised in worship. “Glory be!” they shouted in their reverence. “Glory be to the Son of Atom! Glory be! _Glory be_!”


	13. Clear

DANSE

The Island, ME

February 25th, 2288

“DiMA permitting you to join me came as quite a shock.” Danse stepped lightly over the sodden earth of the island, avoiding mudpits and mirklurk nests. “Do you really believe in him? Really trust that some cobbled-together synth reject can build people like… us… a new civilization?” He held out his hand.

Kasumi grasped his fingers and took a short leap over deadfall. “You mean DiMA? Well, our options are a little scarce. He’s smart, though. Maybe the smartest person I know. I believe in his goal, if that means anything.”

“But do you trust him?”

She dropped Danse’s hand and narrowed her dark eyes. “I admire him. Isn’t that enough?”

Admonished, Danse ducked his head in an apology. Kasami’s answer sounded recognizable. Within Brotherhood ranks, Maxson provoked a healthy amount of inspirational conviction and respect. Trust had never been the right word. Danse forced a deep gulp of cool, damp air into his lungs. He really shouldn’t continue to defend the Brotherhood. If spotted by his former Brothers, he would immediately be shot down, same as any other abomination. Perhaps he’d judged Acadia’s ideals too harshly.

Danse made a conscious decision to reserve judgement for later. This island was taking a number of his preconceived notions and smashing them apart. He had braced for the worst when telling Kasumi that John was a ghoul, preparing himself for the abhorrence that she was sure to express. Instead, she had nodded and asked how long they had known each other. Her lack of revulsion had been anticlimactic to the explosive scenario that Danse had built up in his head. It seems he had misjudged a synth’s capacity for empathy.

After another night’s sleep lost to preoccupied thought, he and Kasumi left Acadia to pursue Chase’s vague leads. The courser’s intel led them to numerous structures and shelters within a few short hours, yet none of them contained any trace of Trappers or John. So far, they had found only mutants, mirelurks, and a Children of Atom locale that Kasumi warned him to steer clear of. The morning had dawned overcast and gloomy and the skies remained foggy and gray. As they scoured the island, Kasumi proved to be a fast learner. She stuck close to his side, keeping her voice down as she gave directions, letting him lead the way despite the island being her home. One of those abysmal Commonwealth pipe rifles hung over her shoulder while an enormous halogen flashlight swung at her hip, the barrel slipped into a hoop on her coveralls.

If they were too late, if John had been cut apart –Danse’s stomach twisted at the thought – or stripped of his belongings, they would never be able to identify which wasted ghoul body was his. Feral or not, all ghouls looked alike in death. Danse had stepped over the bodies of both types after many a battle. “I don’t mean to be abrupt,” he said, shifting a pack strap as they walked. “I’m… trying to brace for the worst. And what I would possibly do after.”

“Well, don’t toll the bell just yet,” Kasumi warned, ducking under a low branch. Danse followed. “What does he look like, your John?” Kasumi asked. “Did he have anything on him that was unique?”

 _My John._ Danse’s heart gave a melancholic thump. He blinked up at the sun, a hazy white ball cradled in a net of colorless sky. Sunshine never fully touched Far Harbor. “His rings, in eight differing styles. A tattered Old World flag. A plasma pistol without decent modifications,” Danse reported, eyes roaming over rushes and reeds. “He’s five-nine, probably one-hundred-and-ten pounds. His voice rasps, but it’s soothing. It suits him. He’s a terrible shot. Carried a sawed-off for the longest time to make up for it. He’ll tease, but not out of malice. He talks constantly, likely to compensate for –” Kasumi’s giggle made him break off and pause, his cheeks warming. “I… was that too much?”

She gave him a broad smile. “No, it’s… your level of attention to detail is… cute.”

Danse’s bearded jaw slammed shut, his flush creeping down his next and over his ears. He hated it, loathed that he continued to be mortified about his relationship even now with dire consequences on the horizon. John had always been stronger than him in that regard, choosing optimism and joy over fear.

“Sorry that I haven’t been much help,” Kasumi whispered as they resumed long strides over rocky outcroppings. He hoisted himself up a ledge before extending a hand to pull her up after him. “Trappers tend to wander. Thought we would have gotten lucky by now.”

“It isn’t your fault. I underestimated the size of the island. I’m glad, however, that you chose to assist me.” DiMA hadn’t been pleased to allow her to go, only consenting when Kasumi pointed out that helping synths was one desire that the entire commune had in common, even if that was only to bring Danse peace of mind. “Valentine – the detective – and I assumed that you were being held against your will.”

“DiMA’s brilliant and dedicated. You just don’t know him. Besides, where else would we go?”

More remarks he wasn’t sure how to fathom. Danse was getting used to feeling like an ignorant fool, not that he enjoyed it.

They came around a bend to find a blocky, industrial-looking building towering in the distance. It sat shoreside to a large body of water with a rusty ship moored at a short dock. For lack of options, Danse went toward it, nudging Kasumi to inform her of the change in direction, a finger to his lips for silence. As he drew nearer to the building, he noted that the structure was unremarkable, all brick and dingy, with no signage to found. Burnt-out husks of vehicles littered an otherwise vacant lot. Knowing better than to try the front door, he stuck to the outskirts of the structure, spotting an entryway through an adjoining warehouse. He made sure that his weapon was charged, snapping it upwards before peering through an open doorway, letting the muzzle of his weapon lead. Mounds of feral ghouls lay heaped where they had fallen, the dappled noon sunlight filtering down from a collapsed section of roofing to reflect off their cold, dead eyes.

Hugging the walls, he made his way around a corner and up a few stairs, jerking a door open and swinging his rifle in first. He found a storage room of sorts lined with pilfered shelving. No enemy presence. “Clear,” he informed Kasumi. He almost fell into the habit of giving field command gestures, stopping himself just before he made them. “Keep tight. Stay behind me,” he instructed. A short flight of stairs led down to a blue steel door. On whisper-soft feet, he gingerly treaded down the steps one at a time. Danse prayed he wasn’t barging into a feral nest and swung the sub-level door open, striding over the threshold. Kasumi glided in after him, gently closing the door. He blinked under the glare of an overhead bulb, the stark white light bright in comparison to the dreary day outside. It smelled musty inside, of stale air and something sickly-sweet and rotten.

Falling into a crouch, he motioned for Kasumi to follow. The single bulb overheard did little to stave off the darkness and a few steps later they found themselves in blackness. “Light,” he ordered, and she fumbled to pull the flashlight out of her jumpsuit loop. When she lit it, the beam of light landed on a wall of boxes stacked nearly to the basement ceiling. Nearby sawhorses were layered with stacks of mounded hides. Closer inspection revealed the telltale patterns and unnatural scarring of ghoulhide. They moved deeper into the building, uncovering additional hide piles heaped on the floor. They took a sharp corner and traveled up a low slope to the next level.

The smell hit them first, the stink of decomposition supplemented by the sharp aroma of brine. The flashlight beam bobbed and dropped as Kasumi knelt to retch into a corner. A single lantern coupled with red emergency lights made the scene look like something out of a horror movie Danse had once seen playing on an infinite loop at a derelict movie theater in Pennsylvania. This building must have been a tannery at some point, converted to more modern uses by post-war survivors. Carts sported stacks of ferals, piled atop one another, stiff fingers extended as if still prepared to strike even in death. Rolls of hide bundles lined shelves, with rows and rows of fresh pelts strung and drying on racks. He crouched among the rotting bodies, nausea churning his stomach. It wasn’t being surrounded by death or the cloying, fetid smell of ghoul blood that bothered him – he had long since acclimated to both. It was a collection of images in his head that affected him. John dead. John being skinned. John alive while being skinned. John being alive and calling his name as thin blades parted his skin from his body…

Danse bent double, bile stinging his esophagus. _Stop it_ , he reprimanded himself. He wasn’t some green recruit, frightened at the possibility of mortality. He had a job to do.

“Kasumi,” he called, straightening, breathing through his mouth. “With me.” The beam bounced back in his direction, stealing his eyesight for a moment, and while he couldn’t see her expression, he saw the outline of her head nod over the flashlight. They searched the tannery, Danse dumping carts to dig through putrid bodies. The feral cadavers split open when they fell, gushing bouts of dark, gelatinous gore from their stomach cavities, adding to the reek of the facility and sticking to their boots. They emptied drawers and smashed boxes, eyes peeled for the red, white and blue of John’s flag, kept as a keepsake or discarded into a corner, pushing through the building to no avail.

They emerged from the front door and out into the fresh air of the island. Kasumi rushed over a short boardwalk overlooking the waterfront and was sick again, leaning over the railing, her hands pushing her hair back. Danse took a step towards her as the door slammed shut behind them.

“Oh, shit,” someone cried an instant before bullets tore up the wooden planks. Danse threw himself backwards, pressed into the paltry shelter of the doorframe as Kasumi pitched herself over the railing and tumbled into down to the beachfront, out of the line of fire. When the _click click_ of an empty cartridge sounded, Danse burst from the doorway, toward the source of the shots, and found a single trapper fumbling to reload a lever-action rifle. Danse slammed a shoulder into him. The trapper went down easily, and Danse kicked the dropped rifle out of reach. The trapper wiggled and kicked, reaching for a second weapon tucked into his pants – a plasma pistol. Danse provided a blow that shattered the trapper’s nose. As the man squealed, clutching at his bloodied face, Danse yanked the pistol free and waved it. “Where did you get this?”

“Fuck you, man!”

He seized the trapper’s collar in one hand as Kasumi charged up. “Danse, are you okay?” She was covered in mud.

“Hold this,” Danse commanded, handing her the plasma pistol. He drew the trapper close to his face. “I am in the midst of an accumulation of the worst few months of my life,” he explained. “The remainder of my patience will not be wasted on the likes of you. Now, I ask again” – he landed a second blow to the trapper’s face – “where did you acquire that gun?”

“From some fuckin’ guy!” the trapper squalled.

Another blow. Danse felt cartilage crunch. “What guy?”

“Some fuckin’ brain-eater!” the trapper screeched. “What the hell does it matter?”

“Where is he?” Danse positively roared, shaking the man viciously.

“He fuckin’ who? The thing with the flag?”

Claws of fury scratched at Danse’s insides, a violent pressure building inside of him. He pummeled the trapper until his knuckles bled freely. “The ghoul! _My_ ghoul! Where is he?” he boiled, shaggy hair flopping into his eyes.

“I – I don’t –”

“ _Yes, you do! Where_?” Danse reeled his fist back.

The trapper threw up his hands, blood dripping from half a dozen different wounds on his face. “We ain’t got ‘im!”

Danse lowered his fist. “Elaborate.”

The trapper coughed and spit teeth. “Crawler… got in the way. Shuffler got lost in the mix. Fuckin’ free-for-all between us, the crawler and a bunch of those rad-suckers. Damn fanatics snatch ghouls, too.” He winced and coughed again. “Said we ain’t got ‘im. Hell, I’m just waitin’ for the rest of the guys to show up here.”

Cautious hope bloomed. John was alive. He had escaped, at least. “Where do the Children of Atom take the ghouls they abduct?”

“Fuck if I know.” Danse drew back his fist again. The trapper cowered before him. “Naw, naw, naw, wait! M-maybe the bunker,” he stammered.

Danse released his hold with a brusque shove. The freed trapper stared at him before gathering enough wits to haul himself to his feet. He ran, heading to towards a docked ship, getting most of the way down the dock before Danse shot him in the back. The trapper’s body bounced once as it fell before rolling into the bay. Danse let Righteous Authority fall back to his side. As he looked back at Kasumi, her eyes were wide, stunned, and more than a little fearful. Watching his own blood trickle down his fingers, be couldn’t blame her.

He rarely lost control like this, but something about John had always managed to undo his composure. Being embarrassed or ashamed of being with John was becoming progressively sillier as time went on, especially in lieu of losing him. Those few words he could never manage to say seemed to grow in significance with each passing day. And now, he brightened at the thought of getting the chance to say them. Keeping his hopes in check, he asked, “Kasumi, where can I find that submarine?”

“I can show you,” she assured. Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out a clean rag. “Here,” she approached and took his injured hand, tying the cloth around it with nimble fingers. “That should do for a while. Do you want a stimpak?”

“No. Save them.” Sunset was breaking through the cloud cover to wash the landscape in a blood-red hue. It seemed as if the entire island was livid. He rolled his shoulders and raked his hair back. “Let’s keep going.”

Kasumi set the pace, leading them around the tannery and back out into the wilderness. “Tell you what,” she chirped, turning around just enough for him to catch her smile. “I probably won’t be chatting up strange bearded men in stairwells again any time soon. I don’t have the training to handle rescues and gunfire.” 

“If you would like to learn, I’d be honored to teach you.” Being a mentor again would serve both of their best interests, giving their lives meaning and direction, even as synths. After John had been recovered, they would collect Valentine and take their leave of this place. Once Kasumi’s parents were informed, she could easily fall into place among the group at Sanctuary, or the Castle. Danse pictured it – him training an entirely new generation of Minutemen, capable and decisive human, ghoul and synth leaders that would take control of the Commonwealth – and it made him proud.

Her smile brightened, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “I’d like that.”

An explosion tore through the island, bending trees back and filling the air with a deafening roar. He and Kasumi braced against the sudden gust, shielding their eyes from flying debris as the shockwave rolled over them. The ground thrashed beneath their feet and rad-gulls to took to the sky in droves. Off on the horizon, a ball of flame grew, tinged with bursts of jade pulses, ballooning upwards until it formed a mushroom cloud. “What was that?” he asked her, dread settling in his chest. “What happened?”

Kasumi’s mouth hung open for several heartbeats before she answered. “Um… that’s where we were going. Looks like the Nucleus finally popped.”


	14. Division

JOHN

The Nucleus, ME

February 25th, 2288

John itched. Not just under his withered skin – though that itched, too – but down in the depths of his being. His cigarettes had been in his jacket pocket, along with a Mentat tin. The jittery, cold-turkey loss of his substances collided with the rad-rush he was feeling inside the bunker, shoving his perception into a feverish, warped sense of reality.

There was eerie and then there was downright disturbing, and this place managed to wear both with pride. The Children of Atom were kneeling and chanting, level upon level of them, all gaunt and sickly with sparse hair, dirty robes and faces swirled with tattoos. Their bizarre goo-lights hung from every rooftop eave of the shacks that lined the walls, candles flickering creepily through cracks in the planks. The rusted submarine ran the length of the main chamber, lit above by candlelight and glass containers of luminous atomic waste, and illuminated below by a stagnant pit of fiery orange toxic runoff. The vessel was old, pre-war and mostly oxidized, the hull stippled by corrosion. John couldn’t begin to conjecture why a dry dock had been constructed to house a single submarine at the shoreline of a lake in Maine.

Tektus exited the submarine, emerging to join John where he stood beside the sail, where he promptly snatched up the attention of the zealots. “This being, our Champion, has accepted the gift of the Glow and given himself to Eternal Light,” the Confessor announced, arms held aloft as he addressed his disciples, projected voice echoing in the chamber. “Plucked from Atom’s Spring, this Forsaken bares proof of Atom’s Glory!” He dragged a finger across the air, sweeping it over the shanties and metal walkways, landing on each zealot as they knelt in reverence. “As High Confessor, I bid you repent, for Atom has chosen to bestow splendor upon this unworthy creature instead of his disciples. Atom must truly be ashamed of you.”

John had little use for religion – he’d take a gun over a prayer any day – but he wasn’t one to openly mock someone’s beliefs, no matter how stupid. Whatever worship he was receiving was unmerited, as he was almost certain that the radiation balls he’d thrown had only been conjured by the combined elements of the island’s fog and the absorbed gamma blasts. But, he decided it was better to keep that information to himself. He was alone and unarmed. Several zealots were both heavily armored and heavily armed. He knew from experience that nearly all of them carried gamma guns that, while the rays wouldn’t harm him, could significantly slow him down. Best to play this smart and rely on his silver tongue to get him safely out of this concrete cage.

To John’s immediate right, someone huffed, “Ghouls. Unfit for Atom’s Grace.” John twisted around and squinted at the speaker. A tall, strongly-built man stood on a pathway leading to the submarine. He looked like a blonde version of that asshole that ran the Prydwen, complete with facial scars. An explosion of ink covered one side of his face in a spiraling tattoo. Along with the radium rifle in his hands, an oversized sledgehammer was strapped to his back. It was a complicated thing, made of rusted steel piping and a head comprised of fusion cores welded together.

John rolled his head this way and that in noncommittal agreement. “Ain’t arguing. Pretty sure I’m going to Hell for all kinds of reasons – excess, murder, sodomy, working on Sundays –”

“Grand Zealot Richter,” Tektus called from the bow tower, and the blonde man snapped to attention. “Bring me the heretic.”  

“Right away, High Confessor.” Richter crossed the bridge to the submarine and shoved past John. He descended the ladder, disappearing into the hatch.

“You,” Tektus barked at John, and stabbed downward at the empty space next to him with an aggressive finger. “At attention.”

John raised a brow, an insolent smile pulling at his mouth. “Yeah, orders ain’t really my thing. Tell ya what – how about I walk outta here and come back when we’re both in better moods. Seems like a win-win.”

The Confessor’s eyes darted to his kneeling congregation, then hardened on John. “I have no tolerance for you, deceiver,” he growled out the corner of his mouth. “But my disciples have faith in your abilities, and so we both find ourselves playing specific roles. You can function as my mouthpiece, as my _Champion_ , or be destroyed for heresy,” he offered calmly. “Either choice promotes my authority.”  

A woman’s scream echoed off the concrete walls of the chamber. The zealot, Richter, was hoisting a thrashing woman out of the top hatch of the vessel. With her patchy red hair, she looked so much like Fahrenheit that John found himself ogling her with his mouth open. She kicked and flailed with wrists bound, screeching, “They lie! They’re lying to you! There are no infinite worlds within us! There is no Division, no Glory! Tektus will only bring us death!”

A flush of chatter rose from the kneeling Children.

“Silence, heretic!” Tektus snarled as the woman struggled in Richter’s bandy arms. “Our laws are clear,” he announced to his flock. “This nonbeliever has been found guilty of blasphemy against Atom, and He will not be affronted!” he proclaimed with hands held high, his perverted crown angled back as he lifted his face to the ceiling and the heavens beyond. “The dissenter will be put to death for crimes against Atom! Let her weakness inspire you all to greater fervent! Atom will not be mocked!”

“Glory be!” the chant began again, each zealot raising their own voice until a chorus of malcontent shook the facility, the catwalk vibrating under John’s boots. _Was everyone on this island a goddamned nutbag?_ He was out of chems, cigarettes and patience. From his perch, he scanned the bunker for means to escape. No good. Too many people, all armed, and caught up in religious fervor. He would make a simple target should he run.

“Take Sister Aubert to the rear altar,” Tektus commanded Richter, this time in a low voice that did not carry far. “Free her from her wasted shell. Crush her skull.” One strong arm around Aubert, Richter eased the sledgehammer out of the loops that held it in place.

That damned eternal need for justice swelled up inside of John and he forged himself between the Confessor and the Grand Zealot. “Hey, hey, hey,” John intervened. “Hold up. Ya can’t just smash somebody’s head in for not agreeing with you. Just send her on her way. That works just as well.”

Tektus looked as though he had smelled something rancid. “And have her continue to spread rumors and filth, desecrating the name of Atom?” he growled, face pinched so hard that wrinkles formed across the bridge of his nose. “Inconceivable. The Family has been on the island for over a decade. This is how we deal with profanation.”

“Look, I get that you’ve been doin’ this longer than I’ve been a ghoul, o’ ancient creepy one” John placated Tektus, carefully biding his words lest he be shot. “But that ain’t how it’s gotta be.”

Richter swung the crying Aubert to one side. “Your transformation was sudden?” he questioned, wary disbelief narrowing his eyes. “How so?”

“Shoot up the right amount of radioactive solution and you can end up just as gorgeous as me,” John instructed, hesitant to reveal too much of his background. “You folks are into that kinda stuff, right – sudden, forced irradiation?”

“You took an injection?” Richter’s sharp gaze locked onto John. He didn’t even breathe. Aubert was sobbing at his feet, clawing at her face in dismay. “From where? Where did you get it?”

John was taken back by the intensity of his stare. “Why? What do you care?”

“Both of you, converse elsewhere and later,” Tektus hissed in a harsh whisper, motioning to the crowd of followers watching. “Release this heretic from her earthly bonds.”

A plan snapped together like pieces of a puzzle and John stood straight. “Hey, High Confessor. Let me demonstrate my acceptance of Atom’s Will. Of _your_ will.” He extended his hand for the sledgehammer, motioning for it with his fingers. “I’ll put on a good show for your gatherers. Promise.” 

Tektus was silent for a few moments, time stretching as Richter interfered with, “High Confessor, I must obje-”

“Grand Zealot,” Tektus said, “surrender _Atom’s Judgement_ to our Champion. And do not make me look foolish,” he warned John.

Richter stood immobile. The woman at his feet seemed to have accepted her fate, laying prone on the bow. Slowly, he extended the handle of the sledgehammer to John.

“Much obliged,” John said, taking the weapon. Handling a four-foot sledgehammer proved too ungainly for the emaciated ghoul. The heavy head dropped to thunk against the hull of the submarine, sending an echoing bang through the chamber. “It’s cool. Nobody saw that,” he insisted as he managed to get a better grip on it. Tektus gave a displeased frown as John struggled. John’s whole plan would go to pot if he couldn’t even lift the weapon. He cursed as threads of anxiety started to weave through his mind. 

A welcome tingle of rads came to play up and down his spine, warming his limbs, soaking into him. The weight of _Atom’s Judgement_ lightened until it seemed comprised of little more than air, barely palpable in his hand. He wielded the sledgehammer in a test arc, wincing as the burn of radiation traveled down his arms. In a surge of emerald light, the fusion cores on the head ignited, leaving a plume of green vapor in the weapon’s wake. He twirled it in one hand as he would his knife, faster and faster, generating a circle of jade light before stilling it. “Huh,” he said, stunned, as the hammer’s head hummed steadily. “Lookit that.”

From the shanties, the Children of Atom emitted cries of wonder. Looking back over his shoulder, John watched as Tektus joined his followers in reverence, hands raised, eyes wide in astonishment. “Feel His Glow and bathe in His Glory!” he cried, true awe in his voice, coupled with a hint of fear. “Atom has truly sent us a Champion to punish those for their sins.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll punish alright,” John muttered, dragging the woman out of Richter’s shadow. An aisle of candles led down the tail end of the submarine to a short altar. He pulled her to him as they began a slow march to the execution site. “Hey there, Sister,” he said in a low but chipper tone. “You and I are gonna get each other outta this. Quick – why’s this concrete box dripping with rads?”

Watching him with aghast eyes, she answered swiftly, “The reactor within the vessel has been leaking for centuries. That was why this location was chosen, to encourage a swifter Division.”

He forced her to her knees in show, bent over her so that they could still whisper. “This sub’s got a nuke in it?”

“It does,” she answered, keeping her head down. “The Division is a nuclear reaction. They want that to happen, to release worlds within worlds. They don’t realize what it means.”

A secondary path, a wooden suspension bridge, created a short-cut off the tail leading to a concrete hallway that likely led outside. Using the flat head of the sledgehammer, John gave her a subtle nudge in its direction. “Be ready to run like hell,” he directed, and swung his head back to Tektus. “Any special words I gotta say?” he called.

“Sentence the wretched for her sins and commit her to Atom,” Tektus instructed.

“What’s that?” John asked, leaning towards the Confessor as if he hadn’t heard.

Tektus huffed and approached, sweeping his way down the aisle as he spoke. “I said to condemn the wicked!”

John nodded, adjusting his grip on the sledgehammer as he lifted it. “Got it. One condemnation, coming up.”

When Tektus was near enough, John pivoted and swung the head of the hammer into the High Confessor’s chest, knocking him from the submarine and sending him plummeting into the radioactive muck below. Aubert dove towards the exit. Richter flew into a run, aiming his gun at John. Before the zealot could fire, John leapt, following Tektus down into the glowing pit. Upon landing, something snapped in his ankle and he fell onto his backside. _Atom’s Judgement_ fell from his grip and its brilliant green glow went out. He scrambled for the weapon, grasping it by the handle before rolling through the golden ooze until he was safely out of the line of fire. Underneath the submarine, encompassed in the orange glow of the standing pool of toxins, he could hear the pops of gunfire, bullets knocking holes in the surrounding concrete barrier and causing the liquid below to splash in tiny bursts. Submerged in radioactive waste, the bones in his broken ankle began to shift, provoking a grinding of his teeth against the pain as they slid back into place. He felt a rush of comfortable warmth as his banged-up body healed and the sting in his ankle subsided. There were some perks to being a ghoul.

Tektus still lived and thrashed in the waste as he struggled to stand. “Blasphemer!” he cried, throwing himself at John, radioactive refuse dripping from his clothing. The two of them collided and John found himself on his back in the muck, warm orange goo splashing over him.

As if touched by John’s ire, _Atom’s Judgement_ hummed to life again, its head bursting with green essence as he scrambled to his feet and swung it. With surprising agility for a man his age, Tektus dodged and the hammer connected with a support column, blowing chunks out of it. Fissures in the pillar glowed, crackling outward in green fingers of light. The column crumbled entirely, coming apart in great sections. The keel of the submarine groaned with the loss of one of its supports.

“You wanna burn in his Glow?” John roared at Tektus, bullets still firing overhead in attempts to reach him. “Oh, I can make you burn.” He hefted the sledgehammer again. “Have all the damn rads you want. Enjoy oblivion.” Instead of striking Tektus, John slammed the hammer into a second support beam, demolishing it. The submarine’s hull seemed to scream as the entire vessel tilted, tail coming straight down into the toxic pit below it. As it crashed down the building shook violently, waves of gold waste splashing up onto the walls of the concrete barrier. Alarms began to screech, emergency lights flashing red.

“ _Safety protocols compromised._ _Nuclear detonation imminent. Lockdown procedures initiated_ ,” a pre-recorded voice announced.

John heard screams above. “The Division is nigh! Feel his Glow and be Divided!” Other, more panicked shouting echoed. Now that the moment was here, it seemed like several Children were less inclined to be Divided. At the far end of the bunker, a winding metal staircase gleamed amber, leading up from where John stood below. He charged through the sludge, passing the head of the submarine to reach the stairs. He whirled up one flight after the other, striding for the upper level. No shots were being fired, and people were screaming in ecstasy and terror, their wails barely registering over the drone of the alarms. Despite their devotion, many Children followed John’s rush to escape, crowding into the narrow pathways that led outside. Several remained, knelt in prayer, eyes closed in wonder, ready to embrace their fates. John wanted to grab all of them, shout at them, shake them from their reverie, but this was their choice and, as disgusted as it made him, he had to respect what they chose. 

John emerged outside into a blood red sunset choked in fog. He was relieved to see Aubert among a cluster of fleeing Children, putting as much space between them and the bunker as possible. He decided that was prudent and, with the sledgehammer still in his hand, tore out of the entryway, following them around a length of fencing strewn with pennants baring more of the concentric circle designs, and up a rocky path. The score of zealots dissolved into the surrounding tree line.

A flash of light was accompanied by a deafening blast. John was knocked to the ground as the bomb detonated. He caught a facefull of dirt as a wave of stifling air and radioactive discharge washed over him. His skin pricked but didn’t burn. Surrounded in churning green and red flames, he was horrifyingly reminded of Garrett’s last few sentient moments, being engulfed in a nuclear explosion much like this one. Being forced into a feral state was probably a contingency that John should have planned for, having already watched Garrett pay the price for underestimating the cost of a close-range atomic explosion. The flames died gradually, blaze pulling back to leave John still conscious and with charred clothing, the hammer still glowing in his grasp.

Cinders rained down, blanketing John with radioactive ash. Hugging the earth, an intense awareness assaulted his senses. He felt… everything. The fog and the creatures within it, low-level ghouls laying in suspended animation, barrels of radioactive waste sitting in stagnant pools, the hum of nuclear-powered streetlights, the irradiated ocean, and Danse, closer than expected. Each particle on the island, every atom touched by radiation, screamed at him, worlds within worlds, forming an image in his head like sonar. Someone – _enemy_ , a voice in his head whispered – was scuttling up a nearby hillside, a radium rifle at the ready. _Hurry_ , the voice urged.

John collected unsteady feet beneath him and got up. A smoldering pile of shattered concrete lay where the submarine’s bunker had been, flames wiggling free from the wreckage. The sky burned a mottled green, like the inside of a radstorm. The island nudged him, made him look up. The figure of a large man in sturdy armor drew his attention. Richter, charging up a winding trail to the top of a ridge. John tore after him, lifting the hammer to avoid knocking the grip against boulders. Following the jagged path took some time. Several rocks loosened by the blast came free as he climbed over them, threatening to make John tumble down the mountain along with them. When he succeeded in hauling himself over the final crest, he found himself alongside a mint and white trailer veiled in fog, attached to a radio tower. Richter was nowhere to be seen.

“ – Cleveland, come in.” Richter’s voice came from the radio trailer. Silent as the fog, John stole up to the camper, hefting the irradiated sledgehammer at his side. “This is Officer Brian Richter,” the zealot continued. “I have located an affected specimen. Location, the New England Commonwealth, Maine. Cleveland, copy?”

“ _Affirm, Richter_ ,” came the reply, half-buried in static. “ _Specimen prepared for extraction_?”

Creeping into the trailer, John brought his hammer up. “Whatcha doin’ there, friend?” he asked plainly.

Bent over the radio, Richter jerked his tattooed face up. Fog spilled in through the open doorway and window, pooling on the floor in a vaporous mist that rose to both of their knees. He looked at John with a kind of irritated disappointment, like catching a child playing with something they shouldn’t be. “I know what you are,” Richter declared, moving away from the transmitter. “That injection wasn’t meant for you. Did you really think we didn’t track it? That we’d lost it?” Richter asked, in a contemptuous tone that was clearly rhetoric. “They’ll be looking for you now. It’s only a matter of time before you’re detained.”

Everything went blurry around the edges as John’s vision tunneled. He felt as if a rug had been yanked out from under him, leaving him to stumble. “What the hell you mean by that?” he asked, watching Richter’s face for a reaction. John had opened his mouth to too many people. Although several people knew about his ghoulification drug – hell, everyone at Sanctuary was aware by now – no one had ever directly commented on it. He drew Atom’s Judgement higher. He felt the warmth of it on his face as he gripped it in both hands. “I’ve had a bad day,” he proclaimed, eyes boring into Richter’s. “Start explaining.”

Richter grinned, looking surprisingly pleased for someone that had just lost his base. “You’re going to end the war, filth. Be elated. I’m taking you with me.” A gunshot sounded thunderous within the confines of the trailer. John roared as a hot pain tore through his thigh, and he dropped to one knee. Richter cocked the rifle again, and John could have kicked himself for not paying attention to the zealot’s posture. In a rush, he understood that Richter meant to cripple him, to drag him away, to once again use him for someone else’s gain.

With a scream of pure rage distorting his face, John thrust the hammer upwards, catching Richter on the chin and snapping the man’s head back. The radiation clinging to the radium-doused bullet gave John the strength to stand. Shifting the hammer to the side, John swung, pounding against the zealot’s chest again and again, a different angle for each blow, until the armor dented inwards and the Richter fell backwards. As irradiated vigor flowed through his body, all John heard were the cries of his own strain and the resounding clang of metal. He cast _Atom’s Judgement_ aside, sank to his knees and took hold of Richter’s lolling head.

Fog spilled over them as Richter kicked meekly. For a peculiar moment, John pleaded with the fog, drawing focus and energy from it. Power collected in his body, settling into his veins. He forced it back out again, concentrating the glow directly into Richter’s head. Flashes of crackling gamma energy danced across the grand zealot’s face as he screamed, radiant green luster pouring out of his eye sockets and mouth, burning him from the inside out. Richter’s skull weakened to crack and crumble beneath John’s hands. The yelling ended and the light extinguished. Richter’s body smoked olive fumes.

The radio spat, _“Richter, copy? What’s your status?”_

In a mad flurry, John pawed over the zealot’s body, hoping for clues. No pockets. No personal items. Nothing. Just the body of a guy that used to be someone else before finding region. For half a second, John considered answering the radio, but had no idea who he’d find on the other end of the line. He could inadvertently bring about the end for synths, for ghouls, for the Commonwealth itself. Better that John’s curiosity be the only casualty. Besides, this battle was over.

A wave of exhaustion claimed him. The feeling went out of his body entirely, and he dropped. He felt lethargic, like being trapped underwater, or delightedly under the influence of some downer. The leg with the bullet hole trembled as fog seeped into the injury. With radiation-instigated healing, the wound closed, spitting out the bullet as it sealed, leaving only a tear in his pants as evidence. His hand drifted through the fog and took hold of the hammer again, using it as a cane to help him up. The enormous weapon was growing on him. Maybe he’d rename the thing _Righteous Judgement_ , a companion piece to Danse’s own evangelically-named weapon.

The last fiery beams of sunset faded, and purple twilight was taking over the sky. The fleeing zealots were long gone, leaving only the smoking ruins of the bunker nearby for company. Weakened and half-strung out by the fog, the trip down the mountain side was treacherous. John hopped a boulder and misjudged the distance. He lost his footing and went tumbling down the slope. Dumped onto his stomach at the base of the mountain trail, he lay sprawled in the road, scratchy asphalt under his face. Drained of strength, he wanted to lay in the fog forever and vanish. He had lost the sledgehammer during his fall. It lay powered down, a few feet away. John mustered the strength to push himself up and reach for it. The weapon now felt impossibly heavy and, instead of lifting it, he dragged it, making his way down the road, ambling without direction, putting the wrecked bunker behind him.  

“ _John?_ ” he could have sworn he heard someone call. It was too hard to concentrate. Every effort had to go into shuffling one foot in front of the other. “ _John!_ ” Someone grabbed him by the shoulder, and the world spun as he was roughly turned.

Danse was there, holding onto him, his dark eyes wide with concern. John’s blood swished, churning sickeningly powerful rads through his system. His lungs screamed for him to remember to breathe. This was real. The sledgehammer fell to the ground as Danse pulled him into his arms. John went limp against him. “Aw, hell,” John sighed, letting the embrace ground him. “Please tell me you’ve got a cigarette. You wouldn’t believe –”

Danse cut him off with an urgent kiss, absorbing John’s story. “I love you,” he said, breaking their connection to speak.

Back in his body, mind sharpening, John managed a cocky smile. “Well, damn. Finally.”

Danse suddenly pulled back, unblinking. “John… your eyes.”

“Huh?” John’s head was still whirling. His eyes? He dimly recalled his reflection in Deacon’s shades atop the broken bow of Rivet City. A golden-eyed feral.

“Kasumi!” Danse shouted. “The syringe in the right-hand pocket!”

A dark-haired girl poked in out of nowhere and rifled through Danse’s pack. She dropped something into Danse’s outstretched hand. John felt a needle go deep into his bicep. He gave in at that point, putting his head against Danse’s chest and letting his muscles turn to liquid. He closed his eyes as he was lifted.

Having Danse carry him like a princess wasn’t too damn awful.


	15. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

DANSE

The Citadel, VA

November 10th, 2279

After eleven weeks in the field, clearing a vast super mutant hive out of Charlotte, North Carolina, Danse had been elated by the prospect of going home. His mission, though lengthy and hazardous, had been fruitful, and he hadn’t lost a single man while retaking the city. However, his squadron’s triumphant return to the Citadel had been dampened when they entered through the front gates to learn of Elder Sarah Lyons’ freak, accidental death. In that moment, Danse had briefly considered walking out and walking back in again, trying for a different outcome. The news had punched him in the gut, left him reeling and generated a hazy feeling which settled over his senses. Sarah had been a constant figure at the Citadel, and Danse had once entertained fantasies of serving in the Pride while under her tutelage.

The sudden loss of their Elder had shoved the Citadel into a state of upheaval. Arthur Maxson hadn’t left his room in a week. Someone had tagged _Thanks for the mess, Sarah_ , over her memorial site in the courtyard. Under her orders, a massive enlistment push had been instigated and, during Danse’s time in Charlotte, the facility had become crowded with farmers and traders looking for refuge and consistent employment. To accommodate housing concerns, a secondary camp was established at Adam’s Air Force Base, where the location would continue to be cleared of Enclave influence. An exorbitant amount of children had come with the new recruits, resulting in more squires than the Brotherhood had ever dealt with, and several of the youngsters were too little to even begin training. The bailey was teaming with recruits day in and day out, dressed in half-uniform-half-scavenged apparel.

The Elder’s absence was felt by all senior officers, suddenly tasked with building ranks without direct supervision. Though it would be easier on the base’s supplies to cut many of the recruits free and dump them back into their Wasteland lives, that wasn’t a viable option. No one exited the Brotherhood, as the risk of an information leak was too high. Paladins and sentinels kept operations moving while they waited for their next elder to arrive from Texas. Prior to his ascension, their new elder hadn’t even been a paladin, just a knight-captain with a background in technical retrieval, apt enough to oversee clearing Enclave remnants and cataloging their requisitioned equipment.

The entirety of the base was teaming and, in an effort to lessen the strain on superior officers, even knights had been permitted to sponsor recruits, instigating a type of _buddy system_ to speed up integration. Danse found himself with fifteen recruits directly under his chain of command. He had trouble finding tasks for them all and had sent most to Adam’s Air Force Base with a team of scribes to handle salvage and the building of an airship that would enable mobilized assaults. Lancer Angeles had a group going through flight simulation. A newly appointed knight named Rhys – new to Danse’s team – had volunteered to train several recruits in the bailey. An additional pair were cleaning Danse’s suit of armor, which stood stinking and caked in visceral gore in C Ring. One final initiate had been tasked as Danse’s personal assistant. To serve a paladin was meant to be a great honor. Danse, preferring to be alone, wasn’t sure how to shirk this obligation.

He was back in his room at the Citadel with the door closed, among his belongings and enjoying some semblance of privacy. Although he shared the overly sterile room with two other paladins, the three of then often served in rotating assignments, and Danse was presently the only one on premises. It wasn’t as though many field officers stayed in one place for long. The quarters contained a desk with a terminal, three single beds, three footlockers, three shelves, and bare walls. A generator one room over produced a constant low drone that could drive someone to distraction if they focused too hard on it.

Sitting upright in his desk chair, Danse wore a simple black undershirt with his tags out and dangling over his chest, paired with issued uniform pants in their standard shade of rust-orange and combat boots. Tubes of fluorescent light hummed overhead. The recruit was standing behind him with her hands in his hair. The trailing of her fingers against his scalp felt sublime and he sighed, allowing his head to flop forward.   

“Hey, hey. Quit moving,” she admonished, tightening her fingers in his hair and drawing his head up. He heard the _snip snip_ of scissors begin again as she started to trim the hair at his crown. He refrained from slumping as she continued cutting his unruly mop, grown too long during his deployment. He had to say that being attended to was a well-received change from scourging in the field, sealed in his armor, sleeping for twenty minutes at a time if he was lucky, and eating freeze-dried food out of sealed bags. He’d tended to his own beard but maintaining a regulation-grade haircut on his own was troublesome. It was within his right as an officer to request this type of assistance from a new pledge, but it still felt slightly demeaning despite her cheery babble.

“I have to room with twelve other recruits,” Initiate Bridget Haylen told him as she worked. “We have to sleep in shifts. I mean, not that I’m complaining,” she continued, ignoring his silence. “I’m thrilled that the Brotherhood took me in. I guess I just hadn’t planned on going from one crowded settlement to another.”

Her words washed over him, her chatter a vague buzz that didn’t puncture the fogginess in his mind. He was exhausted, both from his assignment and the situation at the Citadel. The idea of a few nights’ sleep assisted by Calmex seemed a delectable indulgence. He was eager to see John again – it had been far too long since they’d touched – but his debriefing would take at least another two weeks, the process delayed by issues at hand. Too many green recruits and too many mouths to feed clogged the base.

“Word from the West Coast is that all elders are being forbidden from overseeing field operations after what happened to Sarah – I mean, Miss – I mean Elder Lyons,” Haylen stammered as she trimmed. “Oh, but… I guess you already know that.” Tiny snippets of hair floated down to tickle the back of his neck. Haylen blew soft puffs of air as she worked, dislodging the hairs and sending shivers down Danse’s spine. The hairs on his bare arms rose.

“I suppose that there are worse jobs that I could have gotten stuck with,” Haylen chatted. “Could be cleaning latrines with my toothbrush right now,” she joked, tracing the outline of his ears before commencing to trim the back of his scalp. He shuddered again and gripped his knees, his body starved for human touch. Nearly four months had passed since he had laid with John, the longest they’d gone without each other since they met. A knot was forming in his stomach, the result of misplaced arousal and an uncomfortable proximity to a relative stranger. Her fingers kept unnecessarily traveling over the nape of his neck. He understood her intent; he wasn’t dense. He knew that women considered his appearance attractive.

“Thank you, Sir,” she whispered in his ear, brushing her chest against his back as she leaned over him to place a comb and a short pair of steel scissors on the desk in front of him. Strawberry blonde hair tumbled over his shoulder. “I’m glad to have been appointed to your side.”

Haylen brushed her palms up his arms as she leaned back, fingertips outlining the swell of his biceps and shoulders as his heart pounded. He felt dizzy, almost ill and slightly panicked. When she slipped cool fingers down the back of his undershirt, his hands snapped up to grab them. “Initiate…” he began, unsure of how to phrase his refusal of her advances. “This isn’t approp… You’re very… I respect…” He bit his lip. None of these intros seemed the correct response.

She slipped out of his grip and he turned his head to look at her. Haylen’s chest rose in swift breaths, her gaze to the floor. “Oh. Oh, shit. I… I’m sorry, Sir. My mistake. That was out of line. I’ll accept whatever penalty you deem –”

“Initiate, I’m not upset. Just… confused.” He forced a deep breath and rubbed at his stubble as anxiety made him sweat. Personal conversations with subordinates were difficult. It was hard to ride the line of propriety. “Why would you… _make advances_ … toward a superior? Didn’t anyone inform you of our policy?”

“Knight Rhys said –” She froze. “Nevermind.”

A surge of alarm flushed through Danse’s system. He stood. “What did Rhys say?”

Red marks of shame spread along Haylen’s cheeks. She stared at the tiled floor. “That… that this enrollment push was ‘once in a lifetime’. That the women who were inducted should… would be expected to… procreate. To build future ranks. That is was the Brotherhood’s way.” She gulped and disclosed, “You seemed like a good candidate, a decent man, who’d be… nice to me.” Her next breath was ragged, and she spilled, “Sir, I really should have known better than to think… I apologize. I’m –”

“I’m with someone.” He hadn’t meant to say it; the words had a life of their own. He immediately regretted saying anything at all. That he had managed to keep his involvement with John under wraps for this long was astounding.

Haylen still didn’t meet his eyes. “I… oh… I didn’t know.”

“No one knows.” Heart still beating hard, he was light-headed and nervous, taking shallow breaths, his fingernails digging into his thighs. His brain screamed at him to stop talking, to order her out, to take his rifle, head to the Mall, and shoot anything he could find. First, he’d find Rhys and throw him into the brig for exploiting recruits. Disgusting.

She stared at Danse through round blue eyes. “I see.” As if noting that this discussion had become unprofessionally private, she shuffled, clasping hands behind her back, standing at attention. She seemed so small under his glare.

He had already said too much and yet, it wasn’t enough. She only knew enough to be suspicious from here on out. If she asked around he would have to surrender more information, perhaps even before an official panel, facing an inquiry that could cost him his livelihood. “Are you aware of what could happen to you if you speak of this?” he pressured, looming over her. It was a terrible threat to make, but he felt cornered. The entire situation was dangerous. And the Citadel was in such as state that he didn’t even know if Rhys’ hearsay was incorrect. “That you attempted to seduce a paladin? And that… I gave you an excuse to stop?”   

Fear snapped to attention in her eyes. “Sir, I wouldn’t… I can maintain confidentially. I assure you.  Please. I… have a child. She’s two. She’s in the squire wing. If anything happened to me –”

Hell. Danse had fallen prey to self-preservation, using his status and stature to intimidate a new member who, apparently, he knew nothing about. Immediate guilt wedged itself into his throat, drying his mouth. He swallowed and held up a hand, stalling her words. “The apology is mine to make Initi – _Haylen_. I didn’t know your circumstances, nor was I aware that the male members of this force are using current events to their advantage.”

“Am I… in trouble for saying anything?” Haylen’s lips had tightened into a pale line.

“No,” he said. “Never feel you’ve done something wrong by admitting the truth. Rumors should be dealt with.”

Danse’s stomach twisted. He was a hypocrite. He hated secrets. Hated Lying. Hated omitting. It made him feel undeserving of his position and rank and made him suspect that he might be an immoral person. Most soldiers survived on a diet of one-night stands or expedited courtship, bringing their new mates in for assimilation into the Brotherhood. A drawn-out dalliance, such as the situation between John and him was unheard of. Not only was John the same gender, but there would be no discussion about him enlisting, making him a security risk. Appealing to Haylen’s compassion had might be his only hope of avoiding an investigation.

Danse took a seat on the foot of his bed. The springs squeaked under his weight. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

Haylen smiled. “Mariah.”

He nodded. “That’s a fine name.” His fingers found one another, and he saw his hands clasp, palms damp. “Haylen… will you keep confidence for me? On… on behalf of Mariah? I can see that the two of you remain stationed at the same base.”

Her face lit up. “Oh! Oh, Sir. Of course.”

He tried to match her smile but failed. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “The person that I’m with _…_ he isn’t part of the Brotherhood,” he explained, both humiliated and frightened to divulge this. “Do you understand?”

“Oh.” She seemed stunned for a moment, blinking rapidly. “You’re –”

“Yes,” he answered swiftly, not wanting to hear the word.

“I didn’t… I didn’t know.” Her voice dropped, as did her gaze. “I’ve heard other recruits joking about that sort of thing. Telling stories about how it gets people... hurt.” 

Danse squeezed his eyes closed, giving himself a respite before looking at her again.

Haylen sat down beside him. The moss green blanket clashed with her orange jumpsuit. “How long?” she asked. “I mean… you and him… how long have you been… you know.” Her hands moved emphatically as she spoke, as if she were only getting a portion of her words out. This seemed a painfully awkward topic for both of them.

“Almost two years,” Danse answered, voice slightly steadier now. The gnarled tension in his gut began to unwind. “Our time together is infrequent. Once every few months, at best. Occasionally, it is difficult for him to make it down or for me to make it up. Communication is spotty – sometimes it can take up to a month for me to be able to respond to a message.”

Haylen’s pale brows creased in concern. “That sounds awful.”

“It is.” He hadn’t been aware that he he’d been holding his breath until it came out in whoosh. He released his hold on his legs. “I find it immensely difficult to –”

She shook her head in a tight wobble. “Not for you. For him.”

Danse stiffened, pausing in his sentence to stare at her.

“I mean…” She danced along a reprimand, gesturing at him. “Never knowing where you are? If you’re alright? That’s not fair.”

His mouth hung open before he pulled his gaze away. John had told him as much verbatim. Was his treatment of John apparent to everyone but him? “I… you’re right. I’ve been selfish.”

“What’s he like?” Haylen inquired as he raised his eyes. She swept her hair to one side and fixed him with an attentive gaze, propping her head up on one fist.

Danse was stunned by the ease of her conversing and was embarrassed to realize that this was a normal discussion for most people. He had never spoken to anyone about John and wasn’t certain of how to begin. “He’s… well…” A candid image of John came to him, the way he would raise a brow in defiance or say something so fast and biting that Danse would struggle to form a fitting response. “He’s smug. And quarrelsome. And… absolutely brilliant,” Danse added with pride, a small smile turning the corners of his mouth up. “He can spend hours talking about many different subjects. Theology, ethics, anthropology, physics. He could challenge any scribe on knowledge.” More images came to mind, of John angry, battling him with words, of John quiet and calm, curled against him as they sat in comfortable silence together, of John in his fiery passion, looking at Danse as if he were the most precious thing left in the world. “He’s swift to act but not to accept criticism. This has caused the majority of our problems. We are… very different. Although we’re motivated by different factors, I feel that he and I both want the same thing – to do right by our peers and instill decency within those we meet.” His heart swelled and hurt. It was difficult to care so much for someone that would always be just out of reach.  

He could add the name _John McDonough_ to a short list that had only one other occupant – _Mike Cutler_. John, who laughed freely and took pleasure in teasing. Danse was more cautious with his smiles, reserving them for rare occasions. It had been easier to share humor and company with Cutler. They had both been soldiers in the same unit and merchant partners before that. Where Cutler had been dark skinned with shorn black hair, John was pale with wavy blonde locks. They tasted differently, both their mouths and their bodies. While Cutler had kept a respectful distance, John was always touching him, running a hand through his hair or taking his hand. Danse fought a mild sensation of guilt over replacing steady, calm, dead Cutler with this wild, carnal man from the Commonwealth. His relationship with Cutler had been quiet and controlled, lest they risk discovery. Although friendly with the rest of their division and downright mischievous at times, the two of them had kept to themselves. Danse did wonder at times if they were the worst kept secret in the Citadel, but no one fussed and on they sailed. Now, he couldn’t afford any additional closeness. Not after what had happened before. Since losing Cutler, his heart was carefully locked behind sturdy bars of steel. He loved John as best as he could, but he had a feeling that letting him in would only result in hurting worse than ever before.

“Should anything befall me…” Danse trailed off, upset with himself for dropping too much information onto Haylen’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. This is an inappropriate request.”

“No, please…” She reached out and squeezed his arm. There was no intention behind the touch other than support. “What do you need me to do?”

He hung his head, taking deep, steady breaths. “In the event that I should be incapacitated or killed in action… could you find a way to let him know? His name is John. He resides in Diamond City, up in the Commonwealth.” It hurt to think of it, of leaving John alone to deal with the aftermath of his death.

“Of course. Don’t worry. I’ll find him. _John_ ,” she repeated. “ _Diamond City_. Got it. Not that I’ll ever have to go look for him, you know?” she added, quickly. Her mouth was turned up but her brows were lined with worry. Her eyes remained kind.

He put a hand over hers. “Thank you.” He felt an enormous relief, the metaphoric weight of his secret lifted. The entire conversation had been very difficult, but he was satisfied with the outcome. Almost. “Please,” he implored. “Give me your oath that this topic will remain between us. I assure you, this will not reflect on my performance as your commanding officer nor will it impede your training. Your discretion would be most valued.”

She squeezed his arm once more. “Don’t worry. I’ve got your back, Sir.”


	16. Freakshow

NICK

Acadia, ME

February 25th, 2288

“Are you ready?”

“Of course, Faraday,” said DiMA, atop his ergonomic throne.

“Nothin’ I ain’t done before,” Nick grumbled from a straight-backed chair, recalling the incident in the Memory Den. Kellogg had retreated to some silent portion of his mind, and Nick left him alone. Cables snaked from ports in Nick’s head and body, making him feel like a marionette under the control of a puppet master. Hope, more than trust, kept him in his seat.

Faraday attached one last lead to the back of DiMA’s head and tapped a series of commands into a terminal.

Despite occupying the island for longer than anyone could remember, DiMA had no memory of the agreement that had led to the genocide of the isle’s ghouls, only the vague notion that before that time things had been different. There were other alarming gaps in DiMA’s memory. When had the entire human populace retreated to the marina? When had Acadia been founded? Who was the first synth he rescued? When Nick asked these questions, his brother had just stared, unblinking and perturbed.

Nick understood the chasms of memory loss, but occasionally he lost hours, never years **.** A new worry gnawed at his synthetic soul – if DiMA couldn’t remember what he’d done, how could he be trusted? DiMA had been cowed by this fact and, perhaps sensing this was the reassurance Nick needed, agreed to try and hunt for the truth. What was a brother to do other than help his sibling?

An info-link between the two prototypes had been Faraday’s idea. Both of their processors working in tandem could sort through the mess of files that encompassed DiMA’s bulky memory drives. As Nick understood, it was as if his brother’s memories had been dumped into a sack, and then that sack had been shaken and tossed into a pond of acid, where the finer details would slowly corrupt. Memories weren’t just data, weren’t just code. They were emotions, sensations, incidences that shaped personality traits. That DiMA had treated his own history like files to be stored away on hard drives… well, that was just sad.    

“Initiating. I’m… not sure if this will hurt,” Faraday warned as he prodded one final keystroke.

The info-link happened fast. Vague flashes of history scrolled by, here and gone too quickly to even grasp. Then… a calming room of code, stretching out into infinity. There was no way to converse inside the code, but there was no need. Their synapses linked, and Nick and DiMA swiftly moved through the task of realigning memories into their correct sequences, following a pattern buried deep within the code. An alarming series of events unfolded all around Nick, literally, as the memories solidified and became corporeal, trapping him within them as a witness – DiMA building a contingency plan for Far Harbour – creating a kill switch for the wind turbines that would cause the fog condensers to fail. And for the Children of Atom, a hidden launch key for submarine missiles. The death of Avery, the white-haired woman that greeted Nick’s party at the dock. DiMA’s plan to replace the Children’s Confessor with one of the synths under his protection, to wipe his mind and change his face.

A flash of light wrenched Nick out of the link. His vision refocused, the whiteness of the code fading, revealing the dingy backdrop of the observatory. Night had crept up, but no light shone down from the gaps in the ceiling. The moonlight was obscured by cloud covering and the center rotunda was shrouded in darkness, the monitors throwing weak blue illumination only a few feet before fading into black. How long had they been under? Two hours? Three? Chase had joined them, a wary severity in her eyes as she studied DiMA. Faraday hustled between the two prototypes, disconnecting cables.

DiMA rocked back and forth on his throne, clutching at his head. “I exorcised the memories. I sent them away. I can… remember. I remember the blood. The life ebbing from that woman’s eyes. The screams…”

Getting to his feet, Nick huffed and snapped his lapel, shaking himself out of the lingering influence of the link. “Why? Why did you do it?”

“Because… I could. Because I had the ability to escape my own actions.” DiMA looked reptilian, colorless, curled up with only the faintest glimmers of light reflecting off his glass tubing and metal fixtures. “Why am I like this? Why did I think that was the only choice?” Those pale eyes found Nick and, for a moment, held such desperate pleading that he didn’t look like the same being.  

Faraday and Chase exchanged anxious glances as Nick leaned back, resting an elbow on the counter of a console. “ _I am become Death_ ,” he quoted, “ _the destroyer of worlds_.”

Every single being on this island was searching for security, for a connection, for a home. The longing was palpable. And here was DiMA, hiding in his concrete castle, remaking the world as he saw fit. With a heavy heart, Nick understood the type of being his brother was, someone bent on replacing his adversaries, using the bodies of the soft-headed synths that came here for asylum to further his own ambitions. He wanted to feel sickened. Instead, he just felt pity. At his core, DiMA was coward, afraid not of repercussions, but of living with his choices.

Before Nick and DiMA’s creation, all synths shared more in common with vending machines than human beings. Free from his original purpose as a lab-rat, DiMA clearly put his cause before personal choice or liberty. All synths that choose to live like humans: wrong. All synths that choose to forget the abuse suffered at the hands of the Institute: wrong. And sleepers like Danse – infiltrators – where did they fit in? No way in hell would Danse agree to be a martyr for synthkind and tow the part line of _traumatic memories are good for the manufactured soul_. “Let’s blame the Institute then, shall we?” Nick said, giving DiMA a chance. “A fault in your programming. Built to echo our creators’ sentiment of _for the greater good,_ for whatever that’s worth _._ ”

“You would forgive me?” DiMA asked, raising his mighty head out of his hands.

Many times over, Nick had wished that a court of law still existed. That the guilty had other options other then fleeing for their lives or taking a bullet to the brainpan. Could he from any type of relationship with DiMA, knowing what he’d done? Nick wasn’t sure. Time would have to tell if DiMA. “That ain’t exactly up to me,” Nick said, backing out of a direct answer. “I’m not one of those you wronged. By creating dependency, you control everything. You toyed with the lives of those that trust you. It’s up to them to forgive you, not me.”

As DiMA curled into a miserable ball, Faraday knelt by his side.

The front door opened and closed again, the sound echoing down the short corridor to the observatory. Chase whipped her rifle up, and Faraday stepped behind her.

Danse and John appeared with a girl by their side. The ghoul looked worse for wear, drained, his clothing charred and lugging a colossal sledgehammer, a plasma pistol dangling at his hip. He pressed one shoulder against Danse. The former soldier leaned right back, knotting a hand in John’s flame-kissed shirt. It wasn’t clear which one of them was fully holding the other upright. The girl had a few stray leaves were caught up in her hair and her jumpsuit was caked in mud. Her eyes skittered between the two prototypes. “It’s... you!” she cried when she spotted Nick. “The old man in the coat! I remember you.”

Startled, it took Nick half a second to decipher her meaning. “Oh. Hello, Kasumi. You okay, kid?”

“What happened?” she blurted, rushing to DiMA’s side.  

DiMA was either unable or unwilling to speak, so Nick caught them up. “It appears as if my nearest and dearest sibling has been hard at work as puppet-master of the island. The Children of Atom, Far Harbor, Acadia – he’s orchestrated everything. Smoke and mirrors, all of it.”

“So, you’re a fraud,” Danse accused in a harsh tone from under his shaggy beard, his eyes narrowed in distaste. He stepped closer to DiMA, moving John behind him. His hand trailed over his laser rifle. “I knew it!” He and Chase locked eyes.

Nick felt it especially cruel for DiMA to have lulled Danse into trusting synths only to have this utopia be false. He wondered how far back this knowledge would set him. Danse’s insults and name-calling were sure to start up again, his cynicism of synths renewed by DiMA’s folly.

“DiMA,” said Kasumi, slipping forward and extending a hand to touch him lightly on the wrist. “You didn’t mean to do anything wrong, did you? You… you were protecting us.” Her voice shook as if she didn’t quite believe the excuse that she was trying to offer. She looked to Faraday for confirmation, but he looked away.

“Yeah, sure,” Nick mumbled. “Replacing folks for their own good. Just like mom and pop taught us.”

Kasumi withdrew her hand. “ _Replace_?” she repeated, her expression shifting from worry to shock. “Who did you replace?”

DiMA sat upright but dodged her question. “I have done great wrongs. I do not deny this fact,” he said, pulling his hands from his face. His eyes had a glint to them, as if tears were possible for someone – some _thing_ – like him. “But Far Harbor can never know,” he insisted, faint traces of fear in his voice. “Acadia would be wiped off the face of the island. Oh, what have I done?” he questioned, threatening to fall back into despair.

“You’ve proven yourself dangerous,” Danse announced, and glanced at Kasumi. “Your deception endangers the synths in your care.”

“What shall I do? Far Harbor will never forgive me,” lamented DiMA, his spindly fingers tracing his jaw as he glanced at each person in the room for answers. No one spoke.

The last few months of Nick’s life had been spent surrounded by individuals searching for second chances – for revenge, for family, for proving themselves, for being worthy of being allowed to live. Every last one of the Sanctuary group was on the run from their own demons, while simultaneously searching for reinvention. Nick’s heart softened a smidge. This was a conversation that he knew how to broach. He crossed the room until he stood before his brother and placed his hands on his shoulders, careful to avoid the exposed wiring and tubing. “Trust in humanity, DiMA. It may, occasionally, surprise you.”

“You wanna be a leader?” John chimed in, and both Nick and DiMA raising their head to regard him, Nick dropping his hands. John propped the head of his hammer on the ground. The ghoul’s eyes were piercing and aggravated, nerves apparently battered and frayed. His former inkblot eyes were dotted with glittering, golden irises. “Then you gotta be responsible for what you’ve done, same as anybody else. Tell ‘em what you did and why. Folks… they’ll do the right thing.” John paused and shrugged. “Granted they ain’t megalomaniacal nutcases, that is. Guess that’s the risk you run.”

“Tell them? Explain my crimes to the people of Far Harbor?” DiMA looked at John as if he were mad.

John put a hand on Danse’s shoulder and the man released John’s shirt. He then strode to DiMA and knelt by his side. “There once was a Gen-1 synth,” John began with a smile, in a soft voice. “And I called it a toaster. It didn’t understand human emotion or reason, but it tried. It wanted to make those who knew it proud. It was my friend. And it died for me. And for those reasons, I loved it. It was better than it was made to be.” John stood, still wearing the smile. “You can grow, too, DiMA. You can change, and you can matter. And whatever the endgame is, you can accept it.”

“Oh, DiMA,” said Nick, “my tragically flawed big brother.” DiMA set his gaze on him. “The synths in your care adore you. Maybe that’s ‘cause they don’t know any better, or maybe ‘cause you’ve sold them a good story. But you owe them. And they don’t deserve to be punished for trusting you.” He felt a capricious urge to light a cigarette but was fresh out. “Secrets never stay buried. They’re stubborn like that. If your actions get uncovered before you have a chance to explain them, you know what will happen. Far Harbor will descend on Acadia, and that precious peace that you’ve strived for will end in a blood bath. Step up, absolve the rest of them, and go to your verdict proudly. Leave a legacy of integrity for Acadia to hang its hat on. _Set the example_ ,” Nick reminded. “Your words. Don’t lose everything you’ve fought for.” Smiling, he extended his hand to DiMA, offering to help him out of his chair.

DiMA accepted and, with their hands clasped, he stood saying, “You are correct, dear brother. I will venture Far Harbor and I will stand trial for my deeds. I accept the results of my actions.”

Their gaze met and held. Maybe it was due to some remote link or running on the same hardware, but they understood one another. The likely outcome would be, at best, DiMA’s extradition from the island. At worst, his execution. Acadia would rebuild, reorganize; people were resilient. Either was a result that Nick would have to endure. Perhaps, in time, he’d forget. He hoped not. Some answers were better than none. This was _his_ brother, _their_ history, not ol’ pre-war Nick Valentine’s. This memory, no matter how painful it would be, belonged to him.  

“We’re going with you, DiMA,” Faraday insisted.  

Chase nodded and added, “All of us.”

Around a dozen synths ascended from the depths of Acadia, accompanied by small arms and tight expressions. And so they began their journey, a line of synths trailing down the mountainside, holding lanterns of fog condenser juice aloft to keep the fog at bay, marching towards Far Harbor to stand beside their leader. A dense cloud cover blanketed the sky. No moon or stars showed their faces, no breeze rustled the full-blown spring growth of leaves. Trees stood like sentinels, still, watching in the calm. In between earth and sky, the fog crept through roadways in silvery streams. It seemed as if the entire planet was on pause, awaiting the outcome of events.

The incandescent blue lights of the fog condensers were visible long before the group approached the hull. Ahead, hurried footsteps slapped against the jagged path, and a man emerged from the fog. Danse, in his fashion, shoved his way to the front of the line, bringing his weapon up. “Halt,” he called. “State your business.”

The man slowed, wandering into the lights cast by the Acadian synth’s lanterns. It was one of the Far Harbor citizens, a portly fellow that blinked owlishly at Danse through spectacles. “It’s you. The Hero. What are you doing with them?”

Not faltering, Danse’s posture remained taut. “I say again – what’s your business?”

“I need to speak to DiMA. I’m Brooks. I mean, L7-92. Are you… are you with _us_?” he asked, mouth open in shock.

Danse lowered his rifle. “I’m M7-97,” he said, turning, allowing the man clearance. “Proceed.” The man passed him by and fell into an animated whisper with DiMA and Chase. Danse shouldered his weapon and returned to where John, Nick, and Kasumi stood. John wore a spreading smile and looked at Kasumi. She launched herself into a hug that left her dangling around Danse’s neck. “What happened?” Danse asked, perplexed gaze swinging between them both.  Nick couldn’t help but to grin as well. Danse, despite all his bluster, didn’t seem to notice his slip. That clanking bigot from last autumn had admitted to being a synth without protest and, for the first time, Nick felt proud of him.

“Should any of you wish to turn back,” Chase barked at the line of synths, “the time is now.”

The lot of them stood their ground. “We stand with DiMA,” called Kasumi, releasing Danse. “Family sticks together,” she asserted, and they rolled onwards as a group.

They arrived in Far Harbor to witness a mob gathering at the front gate. The entire synth contingent came to full stop some twenty yards away. The crowd was clustered at the mouth of the marina, some standing, some kneeling. All those on their feet appeared to be brandishing weapons while figures in rags sat with their heads bent. “Never a good sign,” muttered Nick, nudging John and Danse. “Looks like things might just go sideways on us.”

“Hey, I know that broad,” John said as they approached, pointing to a woman with sparse hair that knelt in a threadbare robe. “She made it out!” No sooner had the last word left his mouth than a gunshot fired, and the woman crumbled to the ground. Additional shots left the other kneelers, all Children of Atom, dead at the gate.

“You see! I been tellin’ you and I been tellin’ you,” a burly man shouted to the other residents. Nick’s optics refocused, magnifying the scene. It was Allen, the man from the dock. He cleared the chamber on his lever-action rifle and continued his tirade. “These damn zealots have been trying to shut down the turbine for ages. Good riddance.” The residents began to gather the bodies of the Children of Atom, dragging them off to dump them in the ocean. Among the habormen was Longfellow, kicking a dead zealot into the sea. 

“ _What in fucking hell is wrong with you_?” John roared, charging down the path. Danse and Nick rushed to follow him. “These were refugees! They were comin’ to you for help!” He raised his hammer. Nick and Danse each grabbed one of his arms before he could unleash his rage. John’s eyes were bright, as if he were on the verge of tears, unable to comprehend this level of injustice. “They just lost their home! They came to you and you cut ‘em down!”  Though he simmered, he lowered the hammer, and both Nick and Danse cautiously released him.

Captain Avery stepped forward, shaking her head. Her gun was drawn, albeit angled down. “We saw the burst from the Nucleus earlier, but those bodies in the shed have been there for some time.” She looked weathered and pale. If she backed this decision, it obviously wasn’t sitting well with her. “We have to protect our own.”

Nick glanced back the group of synths, waiting in silence for a sign that coming to Far Harbor wasn’t the worst decision in their lives. DiMA approached the harbor, gliding down the road like some phantom. “People of Far Harbor,” DiMA announced, arms held wide as synths cowered nervously behind him. “There need not be additional bloodshed. The fault is mine, and I have come to atone for my sins.” Harbormen stilled and gaped, their weapons hanging at their sides.

 _No,_ Nick thought, _not now_. The harbor was too charged to allow anything else to enflame them without repercussions. “This suddenly ain’t the time,” he cautioned DiMA.  For all his technological advancements, DiMA seemed to be acting like a dumb robot.

“I have to, Nick,” DiMA insisted. “My long walk is over. I must be truthful.” He brushed past Nick and walked into the mouth of the marina. “My dear,” DiMA beckoned at Avery, reaching out to her with frail fingers. “I must apologize. I never meant to cause disorder.” The digits clenched at air before dropping defeatedly. “I… I took your life thinking that I could give a better one back to you. You, I, and Martin, the High Confessor that brought the Children here… we were to create a shining utopia that would unite the island. Yet I insisted on overreaching and turned all our dreams to ash.”

“What do you mean you _took my life_?” repeated Avery, her hands contracting around her gun. Fear crept into her eyes, blotting out reason.

“I am sorry,” DiMA lamented. “I regret replacing you instead of resorting to a parlay between our communities. The synth you were before I made you Avery… I did care for her as a parent does a child.”

Avery backpedaled, screaming, “No! I’m not a synth. I’m not!” Predictably, her gun came up. “They’re lies!” she insisted, pleading with her harbormates. They gawped at each other and fingered their triggers. “Don’t listen to him,” Avery begged. “He’s trying to divide us!”

“Look what that thing is doing!” Allen bellowed, coming to her aide. “It’s playing with us! Acadia deserves to be burned to the ground. One by one, each and every one of us is gonna get dragged off in our sleep, our copies breaking bread with our families the next morning. Where does it end? When all of us are like them?” Allen shrieked, his rifle dangerous in his hands.

DiMA raised his hands again, looking much like he first had when they had first arrived in Acadia, trying to appease a bad situation. “I am the only one to blame. The rest of Acadia was unaware of my actions. Allow for a peace between our houses and condemn only me.”

“No one group is faultless,” Danse spoke up, hauling John back and standing in front of Allen. “These synths mean you no harm. All they want is to exist, unmolested by those who fear them.”

“What in the goddamn hell do you know?” Allen sneered. “You bring these freaks into this town and think you can tell me what’s real? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Danse’s voice had a commanding quality to it as he proclaimed, “I’m a _synth,”_ shouting it before the entire town. Several harbormen cried out and gasped. “No one here asked for this,” he continued, waving an arm behind him, indicating at the entire synth contingent along with John. “They’ve been forced into hiding, shielding themselves against persecution for existing at all. Let them add to your ranks, assist in caring for the island and your town. You all want the same things. Safety, belonging, purpose. Family. A home. Open you minds, and your doors. By working together, you can all have what you desire.”

“Well, I’ll be. Goddamn proud of you, tin can,” John approved, his golden eyes shining with delight. He took Danse’s hand.  

Nick stole a small moment of optimism. If someone as dyed-in-the-wool hateful as Danse could change, adopt new ways of thinking and allow for tolerance, surely there would be hope for the future, a time were synths, humans and even ghouls could live as equals. Danse didn’t have to. He could have gone right on hating synths; plenty of ghouls loathed themselves and their lot in life. Nick couldn’t help but think that it was John’s influence that had swayed him, his pushy demeanor finally convincing Danse to alter his tune and think for himself. If – _when_ – the Institute fell, this silly fear of synths stealing lives could end. For the first time in Nick’s long life, he was eager to see this new world that was sure to unfold.

Allen stared at John and Danse, more specifically, at their entwined hands. He made a low, disgusted noise in the back of his throat as if he were gagging. “A synth and a fucking ghoul. Isn’t that the sickest shit you’ve ever seen in your whole life?”

That blinkered remark unraveled Nick’s last nerve and he launched to defend his friends. “Shut up, Allen. Every time you open your damn mouth, the whole town suffers.”

For an instant, Allen appeared taken back and blinked at Nick in surprise. “Goddamn it,” he swore, hefting his rifle up to his sightline. “I’m done with this freakshow.”

The last thing Nick saw was the barrel of Allen’s rifle aligning with his face. A flash of gunpowder ignited, and his vision fractured into a wall of black. The swift piercing of an alarm from within his processor interspersed with static before cutting out. Blind and deaf, Nick staggered before sensation fled his body entirely. Images flashed by as memory drives misfired, excerpts from his life rolling backwards through time. They sped by too fast to focus on, places and faces mingling into one long, blurry slideshow. Kellogg. Ellie. A neon heart flashing in a dark alleyway. Jenny Lands, her dark hair whipped up in Victory Rolls, the Chicago skyline gleaming behind her.

The pictures slowed until one final scene played out. He was strapped to a table in a stark white room, looking up at the ceiling. Bright lights shined down from above, making it hard to see. He wasn’t Nick Valentine yet. He was merely someone – some _thing_ – without a name.

A movement by his side made him jolt in fright. A gentle hand patted his arm, and someone leaned over to look down at him, a reassuring smile on their face. “Don’t worry, brother,” it said. The figure’s polymer skin was intact. There was no tubing, no extra drives, just an average Gen-2 synth dressed in an Institute jumpsuit. “I’ll look out for you. You and I… we’re going to do great deeds together.”

The room faded, the tableau shrinking into a single pinprick of light before extinguishing.


	17. No Save Haven

DANSE

Far Harbor, ME

February 25th, 2288

Time slowed as the synthetic body of Nick Valentine staggered and fell.

John pulled his hand out of Danse’s and threw himself forward, as if he could possibly help. There wasn’t enough of Valentine’s head left to repair. Danse looped arms around John’s middle, holding him back. John struggled as Valentine hit the ground. John was screaming. Not words, just jagged cries of primal anguish.

Though shock fogged Danse’s senses, he forced himself to take an account of the scene. Nearby, Kasumi had her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. DiMA was in action, covering the distance between him and his brother in fluid strides. Looking stunned, Avery’s mouth hung open, the gun dropping from her hands to clatter onto the wooden planks of the wharf. Longfellow’s brow had lowered, and his hands gripped his rifle tightly, bracing for retaliation. Danse’s eyes finally landed on Allen, whose face contorted in disgust as he cleared the chamber with a hollow-sounding clunk.

Time slammed back into progression. Peace reigned for a single breath. Then, the gunshots began. Danse couldn’t tell who started it, Acadia or Far Harbor. Both groups started shooting, the bangs deafening in proximity. Chase pressed forward into the maelstrom, firing at the citizens while Faraday fell back, shrinking into the mists.

Ducking bullets, Danse heaved John and that garish hammer out of the maw of the open gate and threw himself back against the Hull, shielded from the Far Harbor side of the assault. He spied Kasumi crawling to the other side of the entry, pressing herself to the wall of towering metal siding. Out on the road, a dark-skinned synth dropped, shot through the neck, blood arcing in a red spout. Glass windows that had survived centuries shattered in their frames as harbormen’s bullets hit some of the houses on the other side of the road. The mouth of the gate cramped with fighting as more people charged from the marina to finally engage the island’s synths.

“Kasumi!” Danse shouted over the din a several harbormen ran past, firing, pushing the troupe of synths back. Her wide, stunned eyes met his. “Go! Your grandfather’s boat is at the dock. If we aren’t behind you, leave without us.”

“I’m not deserting you,” she yelled back, eyes hardening. “There are good people here! I won’t run away!” She drew her pipe rifle and flicked the safety off. He knew that look, that determined clench of her jaw. Though scared, she was prepared to make a stand for her people. God, she reminded him of Haylen.

John jammed his elbow into Danse’s side and wiggled free. He jabbed a finger up at the Hull. “Up and over?” he suggested.

Danse then realized where they were standing. It was the same place where they had fought the monsters that lurked in the fog when first arriving. On the other side of the barrier, a length of elevated walkways connected the upper levels. John’s call was sound. Up the ladder, around the hull and down to the dock, avoiding the shootout on the wharf.

He slung Righteous Authority to face front – it wouldn’t have done to walk up rifle-in-hand – and charged it, daring a glance around the entryway. Smoke mingled with weak threads of fog, clouding the wharf, making the attack appear unfocused, as if it were out of a dream or a terrible nightmare. Harbormen weaved in and out of storefronts, using the shops as cover. A little boy wailed, cowering in a corner, hands over his ears. Valentine’s body lay nearby with DiMA bowed over it, his hands grasping his brother’s.

A shotgun blast sounded and DiMA’s body went sailing backwards through the proscenium of the gate, a myriad of holes blown into him. The glass tubes attached to his body shattered upon impact with the pavement. He landed in a lifeless heap atop the bodies of the Children. Kasumi screamed, her bravado lost to the wind. She reached for DiMA, creeping into the line of fire.

“Kasumi!” Danse called again. “Wait!” She slammed herself back into hiding, tears streaming down her face. He looked to John, who nodded, raising his sledgehammer. It lit up, spitting a copious amount of green energy. Danse shouted across the entrance, “ _Now_ , Kasumi. Three, two –”

In place of _one_ , he darted out into the entry, snapping his rifle up. The barkeep caught sight of him and leveled his shotgun in his direction. Danse fired first. The man’s body jerked as a red-hot energy beam tore into his leg, crippling him, and he fell to the ground, cursing.

John and Kasumi stole around either side of Danse. Keeping an eye on the harbor, Danse followed as they kept their backs to the wall. “John, send her first,” he instructed. Kasumi scrambled up the rickety wooden ladder and disappeared behind the lee of a roof. A second later, a blast tore a chunk out of the wall and John and Danse leapt from flying shrapnel. Danse pressed into the narrow shelter of a doorframe and saw Allen loading another round, calling out, fuming, “Look what you’ve brought to this town, synth! Any blood spilled today is on your hands. You and that freak robot had to go and wreck everything,” he claimed, bringing his rifle up.

“You forgot about me, asshole,” a voice rasped, gaining the attention of Allen and Danse. John stood shielded in a nook to one side, containing little more than a workbench and an armor frame. He twirled his hammer in a circle with one hand, making a show of it. Green light formed a spinning halo around the head as it swung. “You’re a petty little shit,” John hissed. “Starting trouble for the sake of being a dick.”

“Shut your ugly fucking fag face, ghoul,” Allen spat. 

John’s cheek twitched. He stilled the hammer, its jade light shimmering. Fast as a snap, he fired his plasma pistol from his opposite hand. Allen went down, dropping his rifle to clutch as his gut. The lights in John’s hammer ignited again as he stepped from safety. Flumes of energy arched in the afterimage of the hammer’s path as John buried the head in Allen’s face, crushing it to crimson paste. “Go!” he bellowed at Danse, wrenching the hammer out of the mush.

Avery appeared around the frame of the trading shop, whipping her gun in their direction. Danse hoisted himself up the ladder and around a gable, grabbing a cowering Kasumi by the arm and shoving her into a stumbling run. The lighting was paltry as they made their way down to the dock, the dark shapes of ships bobbing against the backdrop of a black night at sea. The Nakano boat was only a short jog away. Danse followed close on Kasumi’s heels as a shot rang out.

Something small lodged itself in Danse’s back, sending pain to flare up his shoulder and knock him down. He caught his fall by bracing his hands on the wooden slats of the dock, his rifle dangling by its strap. Kasumi skidded to a stop. Her eyes widened as she swung her rifle up.

A second shot. Kasumi’s head rocked back as her right eye became a scarlet hole, blood spraying out of the back of her head, the droplets shining as they reflected the fog condensers’ glow. The rifle fell from her hands as she crumpled. Danse lurched forward, heedless of the wound in his back, catching her as she dropped, cradling her head in his hand. Warm blood and chunks of tissue slid between his fingers. He screamed, all wrath and agony and injustice, as he settled Kasumi’s body down on the pier. His fingertips sank into the pulp of her ruined skull, feeling shattered bits of bone and the squish of brain matter.

Something was wrong. Everything was wrong, he amended, but he was on the cusp of a connection. In Rivet City, he’d seen firsthand the enormous gape in X6-88’s head, a hollow dome that housed the sizable bulk of the courser’s synth component. There shouldn’t be any gray matter. Synths weren’t constructed that way. “Oh. Oh, God. Kasumi…”

The gunfire had ceased, and a woman cried out. He raised his head to see John further up the dock, forcing Avery to her knees. She looked petrified, dropping her gun to raise her hands as John reeled back to swing the hammer. “John, stop!” Danse cried. The ghoul froze, a statue in mid-action, the hammer head hovering over Avery. “There’s nothing here,” he proclaimed.

John’s head cocked. “What do you mean?”

“She isn’t a synth. _She’s not a synth!”_ Danse shouted, grabbing Avery’s attention. “There’s no component! You’ve killed an innocent human girl.”

Avery’s raised hands quivered, and she stammered, “I… I didn’t… I thought…”

More people came down from the harbor, making their way to the docks. The harbormen were being marched down the steps at the marina entrance, hands behind their heads, some limping, some scowling. Two children clutched at each other in the center. Once the group made their way down the first few steps, Chase could be seen behind them, flanked by other members of Acadia. Two synths had their guns trained on a grimacing Longfellow.

Their mission was over, and they had failed. Danse kneeled, painted in the blood of a girl whose only crime was befriending the wrong people. People. Not abominations or monsters. People with more humanity in them then the citizens of Far Harbor ever contained.

He felt so much anguish and anger that he didn’t know where to put it all. He knotted his fists for fear some of his hurting would spill out onto the pier. The cool air did little to sooth the fiery hatred mounting in him. Pain wrapped around him; it stung at his eyes, relentless.  His heart hammered, and his fists clenched so tightly his arms shook. Perhaps he was cursed, nearly everyone who followed him left dead in the end. It was a miracle that Haylen and John had survived knowing him.

Something inside of him snapped. He leveled a poisonous look at the collection of both citizens and synths as the bullet hole his back burned. He left Kasumi where she lay and stood, rising like a cobra, venomous and perilous. “God damn you all. Look at you. This contemptible prejudice only served to divide and destroy. Families ripped apart. Senseless murder for no reason other than fear. I look around and all I see is grief.  You disgust me.” Chase and the other synths, they had killed people. Real people. In defense, surely, but still… it wasn’t right. None of this was right. “This island was meant to be home for those who had no safe haven,” he chastised Chase. She stared at him through cold eyes. “To be a place that encouraged change for the better. Now, you’ve managed to blow it all to Hell. There is no pride to be found here. No victory.” He narrowed his eyes at Longfellow – how dare he be part of this, he’d thought the man better – before shifting his glare to Avery. “Were I able, I would command this place be struck from existence. You deserve as much.” His gaze slid between both parties. “Keep your contempt. Burn in it.”  

“We... we were only protecting ourselves,” Avery tried to explain, still on her knees, her gaze swinging between Chase and Danse. “This was all because of Allen, we didn’t –”

“– do a damn thing to stop him,” John noted, finishing her statement. He stood as a barrier between Danse and the those coming down from the wharf. Though he had lowered the hammer, it still burned with irradiated energy at his side. John looked sickened, knuckles white around the handle. “Don’t know what sits worse – knowing that it took one guy to do this, or that no one even tried to prevent it.”  

John was still, his chest rising in short breaths, the muscles in his bare arms trembling. Then, like a gun going off, he lurched into movement, darting along the rocks, whirling his hammer to smash the beachside condensers. Shards of glass and murky liquid splattered the dock. During John’s tirade, the wind turbines, their spires poking high above the fog, slowed and halted. Faraday’s doing, Danse assumed. The fog condensers bordering the marina sputtered and the lights in the harbor went out, causing the harbormen to gasp.

Chase’s voice rang out, bitter as she dictated, “We’ve reclaimed the power supply to the island. Get in your boats and go. This island is lost to you. Consider it a mercy on behalf of those who thought better of you.”

Of course it would be Chase to inherit Acadia. Danse felt deeply uneasy at the thought. It was under her leadership that the synths had taken the harbor. Acadia could become a dangerous hub, a place for vengeful synths to swell their army. He hoped he was wrong.

“B-but, where would we go?” Avery stammered, standing on shaky legs.

“Anywhere but here,” Chase answered in a chilly tone. “Lay in the bed you’ve made.”

Muttering and remaining tightly clustered, the people of Far Harbor shuffled the rest of the way down the dock. Avery scrambled to join them. They climbed onto the moored boats, packing themselves in before starting the motors and pulling away, throwing dark looks at the synths that remained on the dock.

Danse sank back down to kneel at Kasumi’s side. He took her hand. It felt cold in the salt air and sea mist. “Why do I do about Nicky?” he heard John ask. “What do you do with a shell that has nothing in it anymore?”

“We’ll take care of the ones we’ve lost, Nick Valentine included,” Chase responded. Her voice was slightly softer, now that the harbormen were gone. “DiMA… he warned me that this would be the likely outcome. He came here to die. It was his intention that we should witness either the best or worst that humanity would offer us. I regret that the conclusion was not favorable.”

 _Not favorable,_ Danse repeated in his head. His hand brushed over Kasumi’s face, closing her one open eye. His mind drifted for a time, not feeling, not really seeing, just settling into silence.

“Dan…”

John.

“Is it time?” Danse asked, numbness playing with his senses.

“Yeah. It’s time.” John jammed the wide needle of what had to be a stimpak into Danse’s back.

The surviving synths had left, venturing back into the thickening fog before the island was fully claimed. Flickering orange firelight from oil lanterns swinging on a line of steel posts made the island look haunted. 

Danse slid his arms under Kasumi’s body and lifted her up. She weighed almost nothing. He carried her onto the Nakano boat, less than a dozen feet away. The vessel might as well have been miles away for as close as they came to escape. John jabbed the Commonwealth coordinates into the controls, and the craft rumbled to life.

Monsters rolled in with the fog. Huge, hump-backed shapes swarmed the marina as they pulled away, picking through the abandoned bodies left behind. Answering roars sounded all over the island. As more and more distance was put between them and the island, the heavier the fog became, until the harbor was shrouded in a dense white cloud. They skimmed the coast and lost view of the harbor. The vessel’s speed picked up, taking them away, leaving the darkened island to be swallowed by the night. From far enough away, Danse could almost imagine it had never existed. 


	18. The Red Door

JOHN

Atlantic Ocean

February 26th, 2288

The collar of Danse’s bomber jacket flapped against John’s pockmarked neck as the Nakano boat traversed the sea. He leaned against the railing at the boat’s stern, cupping his hand around a lighter that was proving problematic in the wind. He had already smoked two full packs during the night and didn’t plan on stopping any time soon. At long last, the flame ignited and the tip of the cigarette between his lips glowed a molten red as it caught. 

He had lifted a pack of provisions from one of the shops as the synths vacated a darkened Far Harbor. Neither he nor Danse had eaten properly over the last few days, but truthfully, neither had the stomach for food. John was happy enough to slake his appetite with nicotine, thankful that he had included a full carton of smokes in their supplies. An exhausted Danse had slept briefly and fitfully on deck. John hadn’t slept at all. Kasumi’s body rode in the helm, wrapped in a tarp, her presence feeling like a heavy blanket over them. Returning without Nick felt wrong. It seemed… rude, given how this was meant to be his quest, not John’s, not Danse’s.

The loss of life seemed staggering. Yeah, the Nucleus got what it ultimately wanted. And the harbormen reaped what they’d sowed. Their choices, their funerals. But not everyone was guilty. The group of Children that had defected and gone to Far Harbor for refuge. Christ, there had been kids at the marina. Did the synths really earn the right to keep the island for themselves due to winning a single gunfight? Fuck. That was Brotherhood logic, right here.

Something hot and distinctly vicious stirred in John’s chest, sending searing bolts of manic energy down his limbs. He took a deep drag and held it in his lungs, willing the sensation away. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. His nerves began to settle, and he exhaled and took another puff. _Should probably steer clear of rads for a bit_ , he decided, as he seemed to soak up radiation like a sponge now.

A restless Danse joined him at the rear of the vessel and reached over to pluck the cigarette from John’s mouth. He took a draw and handed it back. Without looking at one another, they each slid a hand along the railing of the ship, drawing nearer with an agonizing slowness. As their fingers laced tightly, they both raised their heads in silence to watch the rising sun in the distance, the fiery beams turning the sky the faintest hint of coral. Neither could say that the sea looked beautiful, not with rusted and barnacle-ridden wrecks bobbing here and there, but it certainly did seem peaceful. Each time Danse leaned closer to trade drags on the same cigarette, John breathed in his scent. It was still the same combination of musk and the acerbic smell of metallic residue as it always had been. Silence nipped at the space between them, leaving only the crash of waves to comment. Their hands released. John pulled another cigarette as Danse threw the used filter of the old one into the ocean. “I’ll relocate to Goodneighbor,” Danse said, his voice low but hard-edged. “I’m tired of wasting time. I want to be with you.” He took a deep inhalation and when he spoke again, his words were soft. “Did I ruin everything between us? Was it all my fault?”

John slid the cigarette back into its pack and gave a strained smile, shaking his head. “I’m good at talking. Not so much at listening.”

“I don’t appear to excel at either.”

He slid his arms around Danse’s waist and hugged him close. “You’re still pretty. That counts.” Danse closed his massive arms around John’s back. Them, together. For the longest time, this was all John had wanted. But if Danse was going to be part of his life, there were certain things John would have to disclose. His stomach churned slightly, and he withdrew from the embrace. The body of the zealot Richter, smoking with green fumes, stole into his mind. “Dan… I killed someone.”

“You’ve killed plenty of people,” Danse said, shrugging. “We both have.”

John ran fingers over the cigarette pack in his pocket, biding time before he had to look Danse in the eye. “Does the Brotherhood have a base in Cleveland?”

Danse sounded surprised. “Cleveland? No.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

Keeping his eyes down, John tucked his fingers under his armpits, keeping them warm. He scraped the heel of his boot across the deck. “At the sub, there was this guy. I think he used to be a soldier.”

Danse didn’t immediately reply. “You think he was Brotherhood?” he asked after a few moments.

John shrugged. “Dunno. He knew things. Things about me, about what I’d done to myself.” John met Danse’s eyes and he held up his withered hands. “About the drug I took that did _this_ to me. Who would know that?”

The bags under Danse’s eyes were smudged with purple. His brows pinched in a studious expression. “The Institute, maybe? The Followers in the Mojave? I don’t have the answers, I’m afraid.”

John lowered his hands, shoving them into the bomber’s pockets. He had been so proud of Danse, to see him come so far and announce his synthness to an entire town without shame. He was one step closer to being truly free from the shackles placed on him by both the Brotherhood and the Institute. But despite Danse’s growth, there were still some truths that John didn’t trust him with. Maybe it had been the island or the fog itself, but John had been able to do things that just didn’t make sense. Knowing that John had been able to funnel radiation into burning a man from the inside out wouldn’t bring Danse comfort. Old habits die hard, and John was vaguely worried that the knowledge of his abilities would prove him too close to the edge, and Danse would be forced to justify killing him as a precaution. John wouldn’t even blame him. Danse would want to minimize potential casualties, and that was honorable.

The sun was up and shimmering on the horizon when John finally found the strength to part with an additional piece of information. “Listen. Dan, I…” He forced a breath. “There’s something wrong with me. Like Curie warned… I’m changing. And I don’t know where it’s going, and I don’t know how long it’ll take.” He bit into his lip before adding, “And it’s damn scary.”

Danse cupped John’s shoulders in his hands. “I’ll be there for you.”

John had made a dumb decision at the submarine, letting the nuke go off without much forethought. Garrett had been turned feral in a similar explosion, and John had hated him for years for being so reckless. Leaving Danse in the same position that Garrett had left him made his chest hurt and his stomach drop. “You know there’s a hell of a chance that I’m about to turn for good. What then?”

It took Danse a moment before he responded. His serious brown eyes found John’s. “I’ll handle it,” he promised, voice tighter than normal. “I won’t lose my head.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Danse would ensure that his end would be as swift and just as it could be. John trusted him to do it, to end his savage existence before anyone was harmed. That race with MacCready to find a cure had been a temporary fix to an eventuality that John had no escape from. He sank his forehead into Danse’s chest. Danse rubbed John’s arms briskly in return, a subtle hint that he was done with this despairing discussion.

As the boat keeled towards the mainland, they readied Kasumi. The two of them draped a few more tarps over her, obscuring where her blood had seeped through the first shroud. Danse ran a caring hand over her form. Greeting parents with their child’s corpse in tow would be a terrible thing to do. People needed time to sort out their emotions and prepare themselves. John was secretly glad that families steered clear of Goodneighbor. In some recess of his soul, he knew that each daybreak would meet a new widow, or a new orphan, or a new grieving parent. He couldn’t look down from his balcony and see that. What if Piper and Danse were right, and the Goodneighbor lifestyle was driving the citizens of his town into the ground while pushing away honest families in need of shelter? He wasn’t sure how to fix that, how to even start without infringing on personal liberty.

It was sunny but raining when their boat pulled up to the Nakano residence. John left his massive sledgehammer on the dock while Danse carried Kasumi’s draped body out to the boathouse. The red door on the front porch of the Nakano house seemed ominous, a warning sign to steer clear. As Danse knocked, John wished he was back in his stately coat, presentable and confident instead of gaunt-looking and nervous in Danse’s oversized jacket.

“You’re back!” Kenji exclaimed when he answered the door. His worn face lit up and he glanced over their shoulders. “Where is Kasumi?” At Kenji’s back, his wife rounded a corner, racing down from upstairs.

John and Danse looked at each other, trying to figure out which one should talk. Neither crossed the threshold. Instead, they stood in the light rain, beads of water collecting in Danse’s beard. “Mister Nakano,” Danse began. John was grateful that he’d taken the initiative. Surely, he’d given these types of notices before. “I’m afraid I have bad news. Kasumi… she didn’t make it.”

From within the parlor room, John heard Rei cry out. Kenji caught a stunned breath and took half a step backwards. Tears sprung to his eyes as his face contorted into wrath. “You were supposed to protect her, bring her back safety!” he yelled. “What happened? _What did you do to my little girl_?”

John caught Danse’s jaw tremble. “She was an unexpected casualty. I’m… so very sorry for your loss.”

Kenji landed an open-palmed smack to the doorframe. “After all that nonsense about synths, about her wanting to join them, those monsters got her killed!”

Although John could empathize, he knew that he wasn’t able to fathom the depth of the Nakano’s pain. His limited exposure to Kasumi had left the impression that she was sincere in her affection for Acadia and adamant that her death not cause additional stresses between humans and synths. John gave a short sigh and shook his head. “No synth took a shot at her, Pops. What happened to her… that was people, real folks caught up in a world too complicated for them to understand.”

“I’ve placed her body in your boathouse,” Danse informed. He seemed to be barely holding himself together. His back was locked in a tight military stance, but his expression didn’t match the confidence of his posture. “Her appearance… it may be distressing...”

“My baby girl is dead, oh God,” Rei wailed, grasping onto a chairback for support, and John’s heart tore in two.

Searching for solace to his grief, Danse’s hand sought John’s. He squeezed Danse’s hand tight, and it seemed exactly what he needed. Danse breathed easier when he said, “Your daughter… she may have been the best of us. It was an honor to know her.”

Kenji’s face crumbled into a hateful, pinched stare. “Your work is done!” he screamed, tears rolling down the lines around his mouth. He gestured angrily at them. “Both of you, get off of my property! And you can tell Nick I never want to see him again!” The red door slammed shut.

They both stood in place, sinking deeper into despair as the Nakanos began to fight and weep inside, throwing blame. _If only, if only._ John dropped Danse’s hand and strode to the dock, swallowing convulsively as he retrieved his hammer. Someone’s kid had been killed on their watch and dammed if that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. And Nick… shit. John would have to sneak into Diamond City to tell Ellie and Piper. He stalked down the beach, dragging the weighty head of the hammer in the sand, leaving a deep groove in the shoreline behind him.

Danse caught up and took John’s hand again as they began the long walk back to Boston. The rain was lessening, barely misting now.

“Wait!” someone called, and they turned. Rei came running down the beach. “Was she one of them?” she asked when she was near enough to not have to shout.

“One of who?” asked Danse.

“Kasumi… was she a synth?”

“No,” Danse answered. “She’s wasn’t.” John could tell that the smile he gave her was false, only there to reassure a mother that her child hadn’t forsaken her. “She was always your daughter.”

Rei jerked swift nods. “And Nick?” she added.

Danse clung tightly to his hand. It hurt. John didn’t stop him. “He was lost as well. He’s… with family now.”

“Oh, I… I see.” Rei looked down at the sand for several long moments before bringing her eyes up. The smile she gave was more genuine than the one Danse had given her. “Best of luck to the two of you in the future,” she said.

“You’re wishing _us_ luck?” John frowned and gave her a confused look. “We bring your dead daughter back and you give us well-wishes?”

That smile, bittersweet and accepting, still clung to Rei’s face. “Sometimes… sometimes you have to make the best with what comes your way.” She left them there, going back home a little emptier, a little more somber.

 _Luck._ Maybe they’d need it. Maybe they wouldn’t. But they would face it together and, in these trying times, that was the best they could hope for.

John and Danse each put an arm around the other’s waist as they made their way down the coastline, the surf licking at their boots. 


End file.
